Study on Secondary Metabolites from Fusarium graminearum

Fusarium species are able to produce structurally diverse secondary metabolites which exhibit different biological functions. Based on the epigenetic research strategy, the global negative regulator, kmt6 gene, which is related to the expression of the secondary metabolite gene cluster, was knocked out to activate the silent gene. A chemical investigation on the cultures extract of the mutant strain led to the isolation of compounds 1 similar to 4. Among them, fusarane B (1) and fusarane C (2) are two new compounds. Furthermore, the antitumor activities of 1 similar to 4 were assayed. Compounds 1 and 3 exhibited moderate inhibitory effect on two human cancer cells of Hela and Mia PaCa2. In addition, the biosynthetic pathways of two polyketones 2 and 4 were proposed based on in vivo examination and molecular docking experiment.