Isolation and Identification of an Anthracimycin Analogue from Nocardiopsis kunsanensis, a Halophile from a Saltern, by Genomic Mining Strategy.

Modern medicine is unthinkable without antibiotics; yet, growing issues with microbial drug resistance require intensified search for new active compounds. Natural products generated by Actinobacteria have been a rich source of candidate antibiotics, for example anthracimycin that, so far, is only known to be produced by Streptomyces species. Based on sequence similarity with the respective biosynthetic cluster, we sifted through available microbial genome data with the goal to find alternative anthracimycin-producing organisms. In this work, we report about the prediction and experimental verification of the production of anthracimycin derivatives by Nocardiopsis kunsanensis, a non-Streptomyces actinobacterial microorganism. We discovered N. kunsanensis to predominantly produce a new anthracimycin derivative with methyl group at C-8 and none at C-2, labeled anthracimycin BII-2619, besides a minor amount of anthracimycin. It displays activity against Gram-positive bacteria with similar low level of mammalian cytotoxicity as that of anthracimycin.

Sundaicumones A and B, polyprenylated acylphloroglucinol derivatives from Calophyllumsundaicum with weak activity against the glucocorticoid receptor.

Bioassay-directed fractionation using a glucocorticoid receptor assay led to the isolation of two new, weakly active polyprenylated acylphloroglucinol derivatives, sundaicumones A (1) and B (2), from the leaves of Calophyllum sundaicum collected in Singapore. The structures of 1 and 2, which were established by spectroscopic methods, contain a 3-substituted hexanoic acid unit not previously reported in other polyprenylated acylphloroglucinols.