Tenuipyrone, a novel skeletal polyketide from the entomopathogenic fungus, Isaria tenuipes, cultivated in the presence of epigenetic modifiers.

The concomitant addition of the histone deacetylase inhibitor and the DNA methyltransferase inhibitor to the culture medium of an entomopathogenic fungus, Isaria tenuipes, greatly enhanced its secondary metabolite production and led to the isolation of tenuipyrone (1), a novel polyketide with an unprecedented tetracyclic ring system bearing a spiroketal structural component, along with two known C(10)-polyketides, cephalosporolide B (2), which is a plausible biosynthetic precursor of 1, and cephalosporolide F (3).