Marine fungi are a promising source of novel bioactive natural products with diverse structure. In our search for new bioactive natural products from marine fungi, three new phenone derivatives, asperphenone A-C (1-3), have been isolated from the ethyl acetate extract of the fermentation broth of the mangrove-derived fungus, Aspergillus sp. YHZ-1. The chemical structures of these natural products were elucidated on the basis of mass spectrometry, one- and two-dimensional NMR spectroscopic analysis and asperphenone A and B were confirmed by single-crystal X-ray crystallography. Compounds 1 and 2 exhibited weak antibacterial activity against four Gram-positive bacteria, Staphylococcus aureus CMCC(B) 26003, Streptococcus pyogenes ATCC19615, Bacillus subtilis CICC 10283 and Micrococcus luteus, with the MIC values higher than 32.0 µM.
Keywords: Aspergillus sp.; antibacterial activity; asperphenone; mangrove endophyte; marine natural product.