Antifungal Activity of Menisporopsin A against Relevant Plant Pathogens.

Current agrochemicals used in crop farming mainly consist of synthetic compounds with harmful effects on the environment and human health. Crop-associated fungal endophytes, which play many ecological roles including defense against pathogens, represent a promising source for bioactive and ecologically safer molecules in agrochemical discovery. The methanolic extract of the endophyte sp. LCM 1078 was evaluated in vitro against the plant pathogens , , , , and . Bioassay-guided isolation using chromatographic techniques followed by detailed chemical characterization by NMR and mass spectrometry led to the identification of menisporopsin A, which showed inhibitory activity in a dose-dependent manner against the five fungal pathogens including an endophytic strain (), with MIC values in the range of 0.63-10.0 μg/mL showing a potency equivalent to the broadly employed agrochemical mancozeb.