Antiproliferative potential of 3β,5α,6β,7α-tetrahydroxyergosta-8(14),22-diene produced by Acremonium persicinum isolated from an alkaline crater lake in Puebla, Mexico

Abstract

The sterol 3β,5α,6β,7α-tetrahydroxyergosta-8(14),22-diene was obtained from bio-guided fractioning of the chloroform extract of 50 L of liquid culture of Acremonium persicinum. This fungal strain was selected because of its anti-proliferative activity against solid human tumour cell lines (GI₅₀ ≤ 50 μg/mL) in a bio-prospective study of fungi isolated from plant material, sediment and water samples obtained from alkaline lakes Alchichica and Atexcac in Puebla, Mexico. This compound showed GI₅₀ (μM) values of: 16, 24, 18, 15 and 12 against tumour cell lines A-549, HBL-100, HeLa, T-47D and WiDr respectively. GI₅₀ effects against tumour lines T-47D and WiDr were found to be greater than the clinically used drugs Etoposide and Cisplatin. Because of this, the results obtained support the pharmacological importance of the microorganisms that develop in these ecosystems and strengthen the non-invasive bio-prospection studies that our work group has developed in recent years.

Keywords:

• Alkaline crater lakes
• microscopic fungi
• anti-proliferative activity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

C.F. thanks CONACYT for scholarship 259584. A.T. and C.E. thank CONACyT (181820) and UV-CA-354, PRODEP 2015 for the financial support. J.M.P. thanks the Spanish Government for financial support through project PGC2018-094503-B-C22 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE). A.S. thanks the Russian Science Foundation (grant RSF-14-50-00029) for supporting work on molecular identification.