Eight anthraquinones (1-8), three xanthones (11-13) and two phenols (9-10) were isolated from Aspergillus sp. associated with Panax notoginseng, and their structures were determined as ziganein-1-methyl ether (1), 8-O-methylchrysophanol (2), averythrin (3), averufin (4), 8-O-methyl averufin (5), versicolorin B (6), averantin (7), methyl-averantin (8), arugosin C (9), diorcinol (10), sterigmatocystin (11), demethylsterigmatocystin (12) and dihydrosterigmatocystin (13) by spectroscopic analyses. Compounds 1, 2 and 5 were the novel isolates from genus Aspergillus. Compounds 3, 6 and 7 exhibited antifungal activity against Fusariumsolani, pathogenic fungus of P. notoginseng, with minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of 16-32 μg/mL, and compounds 1, 3, 4, 7 and 9 showed antibacterial activity against Bacillussubtilis with MICs of 64-128 μg/mL, 16-32 μg/mL, 8-16 μg/mL, 16-32 μg/mL and 64-128 μg/mL, respectively. The metabolites showed the potential value in the research of antifungal agents, especially in searching for a biocontrol of diseases of P. notoginseng. The preliminary structure-activity relationships have been discussed for some of the compounds.
Keywords: Aspergillus sp; anthraquinones; antifungal activities; xanthones.