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. 2023 Apr 12;9(4):463.
doi: 10.3390/jof9040463.

Amesia hispanica sp. nov., Producer of the Antifungal Class of Antibiotics Dactylfungins

Esteban Charria-Girón  1   2 , Alberto Miguel Stchigel  3 , Adéla Čmoková  4 , Miroslav Kolařík  4 , Frank Surup  1   2 , Yasmina Marin-Felix  1   2
Affiliations

Amesia hispanica sp. nov., Producer of the Antifungal Class of Antibiotics Dactylfungins

Esteban Charria-Girón et al. J Fungi (Basel). .

Abstract

During a study of the diversity of soilborne fungi from Spain, a strain belonging to the family Chaetomiaceae (Sordariales) was isolated. The multigene phylogenetic inference using five DNA loci showed that this strain represents an undescribed species of the genus Amesia, herein introduced as A. hispanica sp. nov. Investigation of its secondary metabolome led to the isolation of two new derivatives (2 and 3) of the known antifungal antibiotic dactylfungin A (1), together with the known compound cochliodinol (4). The planar structures of 1-4 were determined by ultrahigh performance liquid chromatography coupled with diode array detection and ion mobility tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-DAD-IM-MS/MS) and extensive 1D and 2D nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy after isolation by HPLC. All isolated secondary metabolites were tested for their antimicrobial and cytotoxic activities. Dactylfungin A (1) showed selective and strong antifungal activity against some of the tested human pathogens (Aspergillus fumigatus and Cryptococcus neoformans). The additional hydroxyl group in 2 resulted in the loss of activity against C. neoformans but still retained the inhibition of As. fumigatus in a lower concentration than that of the respective control, without showing any cytotoxic effects. In contrast, 25″-dehydroxy-dactylfungin A (3) exhibited improved activity against yeasts (Schizosaccharomyces pombe and Rhodotorula glutinis) than 1 and 2, but resulted in the appearance of slight cytotoxicity. The present study exemplifies how even in a well-studied taxonomic group such as the Chaetomiaceae, the investigation of novel taxa still brings chemistry novelty, as demonstrated in this first report of this antibiotic class for chaetomiaceous and sordarialean taxa.

Keywords: Chaetomiaceae; Sordariales; antifungals; fungal secondary metabolites; metabolomics.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
RAxML phylogram obtained from the combined ITS, LSU, rpb2, and tub2 sequences of our isolate and selected strains belonging to the family Chaetomiaceae. Bootstrap support values ≥ 70/Bayesian posterior probability scores ≥ 0.95 are indicated along branches. Branch lengths are proportional to distance. The novel species is indicated in bold. Ex-type strains of the different species are indicated by T.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Amesia hispanica sp. nov. (CBS 149852). (A–C). Ascomata. (D). Terminal ascomatal hairs, (E). Asci. (F). Ascospores. Scale bars: (A) = 100 μm; (B,C) = 50 μm; (D–F) = 10 μm.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Chemical structures of the isolated metabolites (1–4).
Figure 4
Figure 4
HPLC-UV/Vis chromatogram (210 nm) of the crude extract from the rice culture of A. hispanica sp. nov. with peaks of isolated compounds indicated by bold numbers referring to the depicted molecules (1–4). Over the arrows, the MS/MS similarity scores between MS/MS spectra from compounds 2 and 3 and the MS/MS spectrum of 1 are shown. Complete HPLC-UV/Vis chromatogram (210 nm) from 0 to 25 min is shown in Figure S20.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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