Marine Fungi

Marine source plays an important role in the form of pharmaceutical care and for the discovery of new molecular structures (i.e. targets). Marine organisms are a source of new therapeutics, especially for oncology, as a tremendous chemical diversity is found in marine bacteria, fungus, cyanobacteria, seaweeds, mangroves, microalgae and other halophytes. Several marine-derived compounds are currently extracted and synthesized by chemical processes for cancer treatment. By studying various papers related to marine source for new therapeutics for cancer treatment instead of other chemical enriched sources, the marine sources are largely unexplored for anti-cancer lead compounds. Hence this paper reviews results on the aspect with a view to provide basic information about the methods to produce extracts from marine organisms that are unique and different from that used by marine natural products chemists previously, yields both organic solvents and water soluble material for anti-cancer...

This review article presents our group's recent research findings with regard to bioactive natural products from marine sponges and tunicates, as well as from sponge derived fungi. The organisms discussed originate in the Indopacific region, which has an exceptionally rich marine biodiversity. Major topics that are covered in our review include the chemical ecology of sponges, focusing on defense against fishes, as well as the isolation and identification of new bioactive constituents from sponges and tunicates. Sponge derived fungi are introduced as an emerging source for new bioactive metabolites, reflecting the currently growing interest in natural products from marine microorganisms.

For the yeast population and diversity, marine habitats are the least explored niches and the lack of validated database is considered to be a drawback for yeast research. The aim of the present study is to create a comprehensive DNA barcode library for marine derived yeast species isolated from organic burial hotspots such as coastal sediment in mangrove and continental shelf ecosystems. As we enriched, isolated and ITS gene sequenced 1017 marine derived yeast isolates belonging to 157 marine species in 55 genera, 28 families, 14 orders, 8 classes of 2 Phyla (viz., Ascomycota and Basidiomycota) of which 13 yeast species were first time barcoded. We witnessed yeast species of both terrestrial and marine endemic origin in the barcode datasets. Due to the large volume of sequencing trace files, the variable length of extracted sequences, and the lack of reference sequences in public databases, difficulties were faced in taxonomic sequence validation. The length of the majority of the ...

With the over 2000 marine fungi and fungal-like organisms documented so far, some have adapted fully to life in the sea, while some have the ability to tolerate environmental conditions in the marine milieu. These organisms have evolved various mechanisms for growth in the marine environment, especially against salinity gradients. This review highlights the response of marine fungi, fungal-like organisms and terrestrial fungi (for comparison) towards salinity variations in terms of their growth, spore germination, sporulation, physiology, and genetic adaptability. Marine, freshwater and terrestrial fungi and fungal-like organisms vary greatly in their response to salinity. Generally, terrestrial and freshwater fungi grow, germinate and sporulate better at lower salinities, while marine fungi do so over a wide range of salinities. Zoosporic fungal-like organisms are more sensitive to salinity than true fungi, especially Ascomycota and Basidiomycota. Labyrinthulomycota and marine Oomy...

Tarballs are formed by weathering of crude oil in marine environment. They are transported from open ocean to the shores by sea currents and waves. Tarball pollution is a major concern to global marine ecosystem. Microbes such as bacteria and fungi are known to be associated with tarballs. They presumably play an important role in tarball degradation and some are potential human and animal pathogens. This paper highlights the recent studies on tarball-associated bacteria and fungi. Future perspectives on diversity, ecology and possible applications of tarball-associated microbes in bioremediation of beached tarballs have been discussed.

Fungi are a prolific source of bioactive molecules. During the past few decades, many bioactive natural products have been isolated from marine fungi. Chile is a country with 6435 Km of coastline along the Pacific Ocean and houses a unique fungal biodiversity. This review summarizes the field of fungal natural products isolated from Antarctic and Chilean marine environments and their biological activities.

Human-made hydrocarbon-rich environments are important reservoirs of microorganisms with specific degrading abilities and pathogenic potential. In particular, black fungi are of great interest, but their presence in the environment is frequently underestimated because they are difficult to isolate. In the frame of a biodiversity study from fuel-contaminated sites involving 30 diesel car tanks and 112 fuel pump dispensers (52 diesel and 60 gasoline, respectively), a total of 181 black fungal strains were isolated. The long cold incubation (LCI) of water-suspended samples, followed by plating on Dichloran Rose Bengal Chloramphenicol Agar (DRBC), gave isolation yields up to six times (6.6) higher than those of direct plating on DRBC, and those of enrichment with a phenolic mix. The sequencing of ITS and LSU-rDNA confirmed the dominance of potentially pathogenic fungi from the family Herpotrichiellaceae and Exophiala xenobiotica. Moreover, other opportunistic species were found, includi...

Malaria caused by Plasmodium parasites is amongst many prevalent public health concerns in several tropical regions of the world. Nowadays, the parasite resistance patterns to most currently used drugs in therapy and insecticides have created an urgent need for new chemical entities exhibiting new modes of action and management strategies. Fungus have been proven to be excellent sources of biologically active compounds, which have been screened for antiplasmodial activity as potential sources of new antimalarial drugs. This review summarizes the current 255 natural products from fungus, which may possess antimalarial activity and can be classified as sesquiterpenes, diterpenes, sesterterpenes, alkaloids, peptides depsipeptides, xanthones, anthraquinones, anthrones, bioxanthracenes, bixanthones, preussomerins, depsidones, phenols, trichothecenes, azaphliones, macrolides, and steroids. However, the treatments available for malaria are limited. Thus, the identification of novel antimic...

Hasil penelitian diperoleh yaitu isolat bakteri simbion NF1 dan NF2 merupakan spesies Pseudomonas aeroginosa dan Isolat NF3 merupakan spesies bakteri Enterobacter cloacae. Ketiga isolat tersebut diketahui tidak mampu menghasilkan senyawa antibakteri yang dapat menghambat pertumbuhan bakteri patogen.

Test on cytotoxic activity of marine fungi from Nipah waters have been conducted. Each solate was cultured on malt extract liquid for 15 days, and extracted by using ethyl acetate to both pellet and supernatant. Brine Shrimp Lethality Test (BSLT) was applied for cytotoxic test against Artemia salina Leach at concentrations of 10; 100; 500; and 1000 μg/ml. Cytotoxic activity showed that the percentage mortality of the brine shrimp was obtained by 1000 μg/ml at 75-100%, and the LC 50 of each extract was varied from 117.21 to 531.65 μg/ml. Furthermore, the lowest LC 50 was showed by sample with code number NA 14.3 at 117.21 μg/ml.

Endophytic fungi have currently been acknowledged, as the most promising source of bioactive compounds for drug discovery and considerable progress has been made in exploring their diversity, species richness, and bioprospecting. Fungal endophytes from unique environmental settings offer a pool of potentially useful medicinal entities. Due to the constant stresses imposed on macroalgae by marine environment, it is believed that algae and their associated endophytic symbionts represent a good source of structurally diverse bioactive secondary metabolites. Despite the proven significance of active metabolites of algal endophytes, a little is exploited. This review highlights the latest discoveries in algicolous endophytic research with particular focus on the bioactive metabolites from algal endophytes. Compounds are classified according to their reported biological activities like anticancer, antibacterial, antifungal, and antioxidant properties. Present experimental evidence suggest...

Corals host diverse microbial communities that are involved in acclimatization, pathogen defense, and nutrient cycling. Surveys of coral-associated microbes have been particularly directed toward and bacteria. However, a holistic understanding of the total microbiome has been hindered by a lack of analyses bridging taxonomically disparate groups. Using high-throughput amplicon sequencing, we simultaneously characterized the , bacterial, and fungal communities associated with the Caribbean coral collected from two depths (17 and 27 m) on Conch reef in the Florida Keys. hosted an exceptionally diverse community, structured differently between sampled depth habitats. While dominated at 27 m by a belonging to clade C, at 17 m primarily hosted a mixture of clade B types. Most fungal operational taxonomic units were distantly related to available reference sequences, indicating the presence of a high degree of fungal novelty within the holobiont and a lack of knowledge on the diversity of...

An organic extract was prepared from the culture medium and mycelia of the marine fungus Aspergillus stromatoides Raper & Fennell. The extract was fractionated via column chromatography, and the resulting fractions were tested for their abilities to quench the fluorescence of the calmodulin (CaM) biosensor hCaM M124C‐mBBr. From the active fraction, emodin (1) and ω‐hydroxyemodin (2) were isolated as CaM inhibitors. Anthraquinones 1 and 2 quenched the fluorescence of the hCaM M124C‐mBBr biosensor in a concentration‐dependent manner with Kd values of 0.33 and 0.76 μM, respectively. The results were compared with those of chlorpromazine (CPZ), a classical inhibitor of CaM, with a Kd value of 1.25 μM. Docking analysis revealed that 1 and 2 bind to the same pocket of CPZ. The CaM inhibitor properties of 1 and 2 were correlated with some of their reported biological properties. Citrinin (3), methyl 8‐hydroxy‐6‐methyl‐9‐oxo‐9H‐xanthene‐1‐carboxylate (4), and coniochaetone A (5) were also i...

Very little is known about chemical interactions between fungi and their mollusc host within marine environments. Here, we investigated the metabolome of a Penicillium restrictum MMS417 strain isolated from the blue mussel Mytilus edulis collected on the Loire estuary, France. Following the OSMAC approach with the use of 14 culture media, the effect of salinity and of a mussel-derived medium on the metabolic expression were analysed using HPLC-UV/DAD-HRMS/MS. An untargeted metabolomics study was performed using principal component analysis (PCA), orthogonal projection to latent structure discriminant analysis (O-PLSDA) and molecular networking (MN). It highlighted some compounds belonging to sterols, macrolides and pyran-2-ones, which were specifically induced in marine conditions. In particular, a high chemical diversity of pyran-2-ones was found to be related to the presence of mussel extract in the culture medium. Mass spectrometry (MS)- and UV-guided purification resulted in the...

This is a first report on diversity of the micromycetes associated with living thalli of the edible red algae Palmaria palmata (dulse). Samples were collected in the Kandalaksha Gulf of the White Sea at upper (10 thalli in the littoral zone) and lower (10 thalli in the sublittoral zone) boundaries of this species distribution. The study was conducted using the culture techniques; fungi were isolated from the surface of thalli. The maximum number of morphotypes was 24; from 0 to 55 colonies were isolated from one thallus. The total diversity amounted to 52 morphotypes, of which 48 were mycelia and four were yeast. All identified yeasts belong to Basidiomycota; of filamentous fungi, two species belong to Zygomycota, and others belong to Ascomycota, the absolute majority of which were represented by the anamorphic stages. The most diverse genera included Acremonium (ten morphotypes), Penicillium (nine), and Cladosporium (six); Acremonium (158 colonies) and Cladosporium (103 colonies) were the most numerous. Acremonium fuci was the most commonly occurring species on the studied thalli (122 colonies on 15 thalli). The habitat is a critical factor for the formation of the surface mycobiota of dulse: littoral and sublittoral algal populations differed significantly in the fungal communities' population size and structure. The thalli of the littoral population are appreciably richer in the fungi. Dark-colored species, as well as Acremonium fuci and Sarocladium strictum, were dominant in mycobiota of littoral samples, whereas mycobiota of sublittoral samples largely contained light-colored species, while the majority of yeasts were likewise isolated from the sublittoral samples.

The comprehension of microbial interactions is one of the key challenges in marine microbial ecology. This study focused on exploring chemical interactions between the toxic dinoflagellate Prorocentrum lima and a filamentous fungal species, Aspergillus pseudoglaucus, which has been isolated from the microalgal culture. Such interspecies interactions are expected to occur even though they were rarely studied. Here, a co‐culture system was designed in a dedicated microscale marine‐like condition. This system allowed to explore microalgal–fungal physical and metabolic interactions in presence and absence of the bacterial consortium. Microscopic observation showed an unusual physical contact between the fungal mycelium and dinoflagellate cells. To delineate specialized metabolome alterations during microalgal–fungal co‐culture metabolomes were monitored by high‐performance liquid chromatography coupled to high‐resolution mass spectrometry. In‐depth multivariate statistical analysis usin...

With the advancement of molecular biology, genetic engineering, and bioinformatics tools,
the bioprospecting of bioactive compounds gained importance in various industries. The majority of the drugs in the market are derived from natural sources through culturable
bioprospecting. Currently, various industries involved are biologics, pharmaceuticals, food,
dairy, cosmetics, bioremediation, agriculture, medicine, and clinical fields. The industries
are looking for more useful and unique features of bioactive compounds from unexplored
environments. Moreover, there is an increasing trend toward the development of pharmaceuticals
for the treatment of various diseases. Hence, unexplored extreme environments
may fulfill the requirements of various industries in the near future.

Numerous countries have been confronted with infectious diseases in mariculture activities, including fungi infections, although reports in scallops are scarce. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the occurrence of filamentous fungi in Nodipecten nodosus specimens from three marine farms in Southeastern Brazil. Eight fungi genera were observed in the branchial arches, intestine and muscle tissue of the scallop specimens. These include potentially toxin-producing species, such as Aspergillus, Penicillium and Fusarium. Their presence may lead to potential public health concerns, since all sampling sites showed the presence of fungi in all scallop organs, with special concern regarding edible muscle tissue. A significant number of species was observed at one of the study areas, which could indicate a previously unknown source of contamination, since increases in fungi species richness in polluted coastal waters have been reported. This is also, to the best of our knowledge, the first...

Aim: To identify endophytic fungi of tropical macroalgae and analyse variation in antibacterial activity. Methodology: Endophytic fungi were aseptically isolated from macroalgae tissue, identified by macroscopic and microscopic observations, screened for the presence of antibacterial activity using cross streak and disc diffusion methods against six human pathogenic bacteria. Results: A total of 27 endophytic fungi were isolated and identified from 7 species of macroalgae collected from the Johor coast, Malaysia. Twenty-three fungal isolates belonged to Ascomycota, while two belonged to Zygomycota and Oomycota, respectively. Aspergillus niger was the most common and abundant endophyte found in macroalgal samples. Preliminary screening determined 13 species (48.15%) having positive antibacterial activity. Quantitative analysis of antibacterial activity showed significant differences (p< 0.01) against six human pathogenic bacteria. Two fungal isolates indicated strong and broad-spe...