Bioactive metabolites from new or rare fimicolous fungi with antifungal activity against plant pathogenic fungi

Herbivorous mammals dung support a large variety of fimicolous fungi and the number of new genera and species is constantly increasing. Dung is a complex ecosystem and to win the struggle for life, these fungi produce a plethora of bioactive secondary metabolites to compete with other organisms. Fimicolous fungi and their bioactive metabolites are mostly evaluated for a possible use in medicine. Very few information are available about their possible exploitation in agriculture against plant pathogens. One isolate of each of the fimicolous fungi Cleistothelebolus nipigonensis, Neogymnomyces virgineus and Rodentomyces reticulatus, collected from dung of different herbivorous, were investigated. Only the organic extracts of Solid State Fermentation (SSF) cultures of C. nipigonensis and N. virgineus grown on rye flour showed strong antifungal activity against fungal pathogens of some important crops. The purification of the organic extracts allowed to obtain different fractions and the isolation of some pure metabolites and their preliminary chemical and biological characterization are reported in this manuscript.