Chemical epigenetic modifiers enhance the production of immunosuppressants from the endophytic fungus Aspergillus fumigatus isolated from Cynodon dactylon

Abstract

Chemical epigenetic modifiers applied on a plant endophytic fungus Aspergillus fumigatus isolated from a healthy stem of terrestrial plant Cynodon dactylon, significantly changed of metabolic profile and resulted in the isolation of nineteen compounds, including ten alkaloids (1–10), six polyketides (11–16), and three benzene derivatives (17–19). This is the first report of 14, 18 and 19 being isolated from this fungal species. And compound 14 was known as a synthetic product and isolated as a natural product for the first time. HPLC profiles of the control and treated samples indicated that compounds 11, 16, 18 are belonged to the newly induced secondary metabolites. Their structures were elucidated on the basis of extensive NMR spectroscopic and mass spectrometric analyses. The immunosuppressive and cytotoxic activities of all isolated compounds were evaluated.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Epigenetics
• Aspergillus fumigatus
• alkaloids
• polyketides
• immunosuppressive activity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by the Key Research Program of Hainan Province (ZDYF2021108), Key Science and Technology Project of Hainan Province (ZDKJ202008/ZDKJ202018) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.81973229/82160675) are gratefully acknowledged.