Non-targeted Screening of Natural Products from 288 Fungal Endophytes from Canadian Fruit Crops

Natasha DesRochers; Justin B Renaud; Joey B Tanney; Ashraf Ibrahim; Ken K-C Yeung; Mark W Sumarah

doi:10.1021/acsomega.3c02786

Non-targeted Screening of Natural Products from 288 Fungal Endophytes from Canadian Fruit Crops

ACS Omega. 2023 Jun 27;8(27):24561-24572. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.3c02786. eCollection 2023 Jul 11.

Authors

Natasha DesRochers^{1

2}, Justin B Renaud¹, Joey B Tanney³, Ashraf Ibrahim⁴, Ken K-C Yeung^{2

5}, Mark W Sumarah^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ London Research and Development Centre, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, 1391 Sandford Street, London, Ontario N5V 4T3, Canada.
² Department of Chemistry, University of Western Ontario, 1151 Richmond Street, London, Ontario N6A 3K7, Canada.
³ Pacific Forestry Centre, Canadian Forest Service, Natural Resources Canada, Victoria, British Columbia V8Z 1M5, Canada.
⁴ McMaster University, 1290 Main St. W, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4L8, Canada.
⁵ Department of Biochemistry, University of Western Ontario, 1151 Richmond Street, London, Ontario N6A 3K7, Canada.

Abstract

Many diverse species of fungi naturally occur as endophytes in plants. The majority of these fungi produce secondary metabolites of diverse structures and biological activities. Culture extracts from 288 fungi isolated from surface-sterilized blueberries, cranberries, raspberries, and grapes were analyzed by LC-HRMS/MS. Global Natural Products Social (GNPS) Molecular Networking modeling was used to investigate the secondary metabolites in the extracts. This technique increased the speed and simplicity of dereplicating the extracts, targeting new compounds that are structurally related. In total, 60 known compounds were dereplicated from this collection and seven new compounds were identified. These previously unknown compounds are targets for purification, characterization, and bioactivity testing in future studies. The fungal endophytes characterized in this study are potential candidates for providing bio-protection to the host plant with a reduced reliance on chemical pesticides.