First Investigation of Secondary Metabolites from Reveals Compounds with Inhibitive Effects against Three Phytopathogenic Fungi of Agrarian Crops.

Fungal secondary metabolites play a highly significant role in crop protection, which is related to their antifungal activity against agriculturally important phytopathogens. In fact, plant diseases caused by fungi including species belonging to the genera of , , and have become increasingly serious affecting crop yield and quality. Hence, there is increasing awareness by the scientific community of the importance of exploiting fungal products for finding new compounds able to inhibit phytopathogens. In this study several drimane-type sesquiterpenes have been detected for the first time as products of by GC-MS analysis of the organic extracts obtained from the mycelia and culture filtrates of the fungus grown on two different substrates. Seven pure drimane-type sesquiterpenes were also isolated and identified by spectroscopic methods. The inhibitory effects of the pure compounds have been investigated against three phytopathogenic fungi of agrarian crops (i.e., , , and f. sp. ). Among the drimane-type sesquiterpenes isolated in this study, 9,11-dihydroxy-6-oxodrim-7-ene is the most active against the three phytopathogens. Our findings also reveal the high sensitivity of to the isolated compounds. These results pave the way for future applications in agriculture of both and its metabolites.