In Vitro Antiproliferative Activity of Echinulin Derivatives from Endolichenic Fungus sp. against Colorectal Cancer.

The endolichenic fungus sp. was isolated from the lichen harvested in France. sp. was grown on a solid culture medium to ensure the large-scale production of the fungus with a sufficient mass of secondary metabolites. The molecular network analysis of extracts and subfractions enabled the annotation of 22 molecules, guiding the purification process. The EtOAc extract displayed an antiproliferative activity of 3.2 ± 0.4 µg/mL at 48 h against human colorectal cancer cells (HT-29) and no toxicity at 30 µg/mL against human triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) cells (MDA-MB-231) and human embryonic kidney (HEK293) non-cancerous cells. Among the five prenylated compounds isolated, of which four are echinulin derivatives, compounds and showed the most important activity, with IC values of 1.73 µM and 8.8 µM, respectively, against HT-29 cells.