Secondary fungal metabolites and their biological activities, II. Occurrence of antibiotic compounds in cultures of Armillaria ostoyae growing in the presence of an antagonistic fungus or host plant cells.

We found that in the presence of host plant cells or some antagonistic fungi, the highly forest-pathogenic basidiomycete Armillaria ostoyae is strongly stimulated to produce a series of toxic secondary metabolites which are capable of inhibiting the growth of the antagonist or of killing the plant cells still before cell contact. The chemical structures of the metabolites have been identified, of which two of them are new compounds. The time dependence and sites of synthesis in the mycelium have been determined in order to lay the foundation for future studies concerning the induction mechanism for the synthesis of the toxins.