Access to natural products by using the co-culture strategy of endophytic microorganisms: fungus Colletotrichum boninense FLe 8.1 and actinobacteria Streptomyces albospinus RLe 7.

There are several studies involving endophytic microorganisms, and more recently some studies evaluate microbial interaction resulting in metabolic profiles modifications. In this study, simple and mixed cultures of the fungus Colletotrichum boninense FLe 8.1 and the actinobacteria Streptomyces albospinus RLe 7 were carried out. These endophytic microorganisms, isolated from Lychnophora ericoides, belong to the collection of the Laboratory of Microbial Chemistry (LQMo) of the FCFRP-USP. The main goal of this work was to increase the bioactive compounds production capacities. Co-culture, or mixed culture, is a recent strategy for accessing microbial natural products. There are few reports of bioactive metabolites from S. albospinus RLe 7 and there are no one about secondary metabolites obtained from C. boninense FLe 8.1. Neither the actinobacteria nor the fungus have been described as endophytic microorganisms and there are no co-culture studies involving these microorganisms in order to obtain natural products. Joining and analyzing all together the generated information from several detection techniques, such as TLC, HPLCDAD, GC-MS, ESI-MS, NMR, it was possible to identify and attribute the chemical structures of some known natural, such as mevalonolactone, tyrosol, physostigmine and deferrioxamine E. ESI-MS was used for extracts analysis from cultures in parboiled rice medium, allowing visualization of compounds produced in very low yields. Besides that, it was possible to obtain metabolic profiles from cultures in Petri dishes, leading to the detection of metabolites in specific regions of the microbial interaction. Physostigmine and its N-ethylcarbamate analogue were identified as actinobacteria metabolites in the interaction against the fungus. Posterior analysis by MS/MS allowed to obtain fragmentation profiles, which together with the ions detected from the extracts analysis, were compared by searching in databases, such as DNP, METLIN and MassBank. Such information allowed to suggest possible candidates for the compounds involved in the microbial metabolic exchange. It was hypothesized that physostigmine, isolated from the actinobacteria in this work, had a role in the fungal growth inhibition observed when both microorganisms were co-cultured. However, this substance did not show considerable antifungal activity when tested against C. boninense FLe 8.1, but it is possible that other compounds produced by this actinobacteria are acting in a synergistic way. The results showed here demonstrated the importance of very sensitive techniques, as ESI-MS, in the identification of molecules involved in the microbial metabolic exchange and will help in the generation of information for future studies involving those endophytic microorganisms. (AU)