Microbial interactions between filamentous fungi and yeast are still not fully understood. To evaluate a potential antifungal activity of a filamentous fungus while highlighting metabolomic changes, co-cultures between an endophytic strain of Cophinforma mamane (CM) and Candida albicans (CA) were performed. The liquid cultures were incubated under static conditions and metabolite alterations during the course were investigated by ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrophotometry (UPLC-MS/MS). Results were analyzed using MS-DIAL, MSFINDER, METLIN, Xcalibur, SciFinder, and MetaboAnalyst metabolomics platforms. The metabolites associated with catabolic processes, including the metabolism of branched-chain amino acids, carnitine, and phospholipids were upregulated both in the mono and co-cultures, indicating fungal adaptability to environmental stress. Several metabolites, including C20 sphinganine 1-phosphate, myo-inositol, farnesol, gamma-undecalactone, folinic acid, palmitoleic acid, and MG (12:/0:0/0:0) were not produced by CA during co-culture with CM, demonstrating the antifungal mechanism of CM. Our results highlight the crucial roles of metabolomics studies to provide essential information regarding the antifungal mechanism of C. mamane against C. albicans, especially when the lost/undetected metabolites are involved in fungal survival and pathogenicity.

Five new polychlorinated bibenzyls (1-5) along with 3 known compounds (6-8) were isolated from the stems and leaves of Rhododendron minutiflorum. The chemical structures of all the isolates were determined by spectroscopic methods, and compounds 1 and 2 were further verified by single-crystal X-ray diffraction analyses. Compounds 1-5 were halogenated compounds which bear three to five chlorine atoms in their chemical structures. Biologically, compounds 2, 5 and 6 showed varying degrees of toxicity toward the Asian citrus psyllid (Diaphorina citri) with LD₅₀ values 27.15, 17.02 and 16.20 mg/L, respectively. These values were comparable to the positive control matrine (LD₅₀ = 11.86 mg/L), which were calculated using observations on day 6. Meanwhile, compound 4 had α-glucosidase inhibitory activity with IC50 value of 17.87 ± 0.74 μM.

Indole diterpenoids (IDTs) are an essential class of structurally diverse fungal secondary metabolites, that generally appear to be restricted to a limited number of fungi, such as Penicillium, Aspergillus, Claviceps, and Epichloe species, etc. These compounds share a typical core structure consisting of a cyclic diterpene skeleton of geranylgeranyl diphosphate (GGPP) and an indole ring moiety derived from indole-3-glycerol phosphate (IGP). 3-geranylgeranylindole (3-GGI) is the common precursor of all IDTs. On this basis, it is modified by cyclization, oxidation, and prenylation to generate a large class of compounds with complex structures. These compounds exhibit antibacterial, anti-insect, and ion channel inhibitory activities. We summarized 204 compounds of IDTs discovered from various fungi over the past 50 years, these compounds were reclassified, and their biological activities were summarized. This review will help to understand the structural diversity of IDTs and provide help for their physiological activities.

Alkaloids are a diverse group of natural phytochemicals. These phytochemicals in plants provide them protection against pests, and herbivorous organisms and also control their development. Numerous of these alkaloids have a variety of biological effects, and some have even been developed into medications with different medicinal properties. This review aims to provide a broad overview of the numerous naturally occurring alkaloids (isolated from both terrestrial and aquatic species) along with synthetically produced alkaloid compounds having prominent antiviral properties. Previous reviews on this subject have focused on the biological actions of both natural and synthetic alkaloids, but they have not gone into comprehensive detail about their antiviral properties. We reviewed here several antiviral alkaloids that have been described in the literature in different investigational environments i.e. (in-vivo, in-ovo, in-vitro, and in-silico), and found that these alkaloid compounds have significant antiviral properties against several infectious viruses. These alkaloids repressed and targeted various important stages of viral infection at nontoxic doses while some of the alkaloids reported here also exhibited comparable inhibitory activities to commercially used drugs. Overall, these anti-viral effects of alkaloids point to a high degree of specificity, implying that they could serve as effective and safe antiviral medicines if further pursued in medicinal and pharmacological investigations.

Euodiae Fructus, referred to as “Wuzhuyu” in Chinese, has been used as local and traditional herbal medicines in many regions, especially in China, Japan and Korea, for the treatment of gastrointestinal disorders, headache, emesis, aphtha, dermatophytosis, dysentery, etc. Substantial investigations into their chemical and pharmacological properties have been performed. Recently, interest in this plant has been focused on the different structural types of alkaloids like evodiamine, rutaecarpine, dehydroevodiamine and 1-methyl-2-undecyl-4(1H)-quinolone, which exhibit a wide range of pharmacological activities in preclinical models, such as anticancer, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, anticardiovascular disease, etc. This review summarizes the up-to-date and comprehensive information concerning the botany, traditional uses, phytochemistry, pharmacology of Euodiae Fructus together with the toxicology and quality control, and discusses the possible direction and scope for future research on this plant.