Nat Prod Sci.  2025 Mar;31(1):32-42. 10.20307/nps.2025.31.1.32.

Cytotoxic Compounds Obtained through Cell Viability Screening of Fungal Extracts, Isolated from Urban Soil Samples I

• Kim ES
• Lee JW

• KMID: 2566711
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.20307/nps.2025.31.1.32

Abstract

Soil microorganisms have been reported to interact with plants, playing key roles such as providing nutrients essential for plant growth and protecting them from plant pathogens. Additionally, various bioactive molecules from soil significantly contribute to controlling diseases threatening human such as cancer and infectious diseases. Considering the crucial roles and potential of these soil microorganisms, the Natural Products Drug Discovery research group (NPDD) at Duksung Women’s University collected soil samples from various environments, isolated fungi from the soil, and aimed to discover bioactive compounds. In this process, 96 fungal strains were cultured on small scale to generate their ethyl acetate extracts, which were subsequently screened for cell viability using MDA-MB-231 triple-negative breast cancer cells. Among them, a subset of 17 with over 60% inhibitory activity were selected as top-performing strains, and other 13 strains with below 60% were chosen for large-scale fermentation candidates by HR-ESI-MS dereplication process to discover new bioactive molecules. Chemical investigation of a part of these large-scale fermentation candidates led to the isolation of 13 major metabolites (1–13), and all isolates were evaluated for their cytotoxicity against MDA-MB-231 cells. As a result, strigaibol C (1), trichoguizaibol J (2), beauvericin (3), and sclerotioramine (13) showed strong inhibitory activities with IC₅₀ values of 0.99, 0.68, 4.25, and 21.8 μ M, respectively.

Keyword

Soil fungi; Cytotoxicity; MDA-MB-231; Peptaibols; Penicillium; Trichoderma