A new quinolone and acetylcholinesterase inhibitors from a sponge-associated fungus Penicillium sp. SCSIO41033

Abstract

The chemical investigation of the EtOAc extract from the solid rice medium cultured with a sponge-associated fungus Penicillium sp. SCSIO41033 led to the isolation of two quinolones including a new one, penicinolone (1), three xanthone derivatives (3–5), and four anthraquinones (6–9). Their structures were determined by comprehensive analysis of ¹H and ¹³C NMR, COSY, HSQC, and HMBC spectroscopic, and HRESIMS mass spectrometric data. The bioactive assays revealed that compounds 1 and 2 showed no antimicrobial activities against five bacteria and eight fungi, and compounds 5, 8 and 9 exhibited inhibition against AChE with IC₅₀ values of 45.9, 42.5 and 40.5 μg/mL. Molecular docking analysis was performed to explore the interactions between active molecules and AChE protein, which indicated that xanthone and anthraquinone derivatives had the potential for developing AChE inhibitors.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Penicillium sp
• quinolone
• xanthone
• anthraquinone
• AChE inhibitory activity
• molecular docking

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Dr. Z. Xiao, A. Sun, C. Li, Y. Zhang, and X. Ma in the analytical facility at SCSIO for recording spectroscopic data.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The research was supported by the Hainan Provincial Joint Project of Sanya Yazhou Bay Science and Technology City (Grant No. 2021JJLH0097 and 2021CXLH0013), Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (2021B1515120046).