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Trichomonas vaginalis is a neglected urogenital parasitic protist that causes 170 million cases of trichomoniasis annually, making it the most prevalent non-viral, sexually transmitted disease. Trichomoniasis treatment relies on nitroheterocyclics, such as metronidazole. However, with increasing drug-resistance, there is an urgent need for novel anti-trichomonals. Little progress has been made to translate anti-trichomonal research into commercialised therapeutics, and the absence of a standardised compound-screening platform is the immediate stumbling block for drug-discovery. Herein, we describe a simple, cost-effective growth assay for T. vaginalis and the related Tritrichomonas foetus. Tracking changes in pH were a valid indicator of trichomonad growth (T. vaginalis and T. foetus), allowing development of a miniaturised, chromogenic growth assay based on the phenol red indicator in 96- and 384-well microtiter plate formats. The outputs of this assay can be quantitatively and qualitatively assessed, with consistent dynamic ranges based on Z′ values of 0.741 and 0.870 across medium- and high-throughput formats, respectively. We applied this high-throughput format within the largest pure-compound microbial metabolite screen (812 compounds) for T. vaginalis and identified 43 hit compounds. We compared these identified compounds to mammalian cell lines, and highlighted extensive overlaps between anti-trichomonal and anti-tumour activity. Lastly, observing nanomolar inhibition of T. vaginalis by fumagillin, and noting this compound has reported activity in other protists, we performed in silico analyses of the interaction of fumagillin with its molecular target methionine aminopeptidase 2 for T. vaginalis, Giardia lamblia and Entamoeba histolytica, highlighting potential for fumagillin as a broad-spectrum anti-protistal against microaerophilic protists. Together, this new platform will accelerate drug-discovery efforts, underpin drug-resistance screening in trichomonads, and contributing to a growing body of evidence highlighting the potential of microbial natural products as novel anti-protistals.

Chemical investigation of an undescribed Australian fungus, Aspergillus nanangensis, led to the identification of the nanangenines – a family of seven new and three previously reported drimane sesquiterpenoids. The structures of the nanangenines were elucidated by detailed spectroscopic analysis supported by single crystal X-ray diffraction studies. The compounds were assayed for in vitro activity against bacteria, fungi, mammalian cells and plants. Bioinformatics analysis, including comparative analysis with other acyl drimenol-producing Aspergilli, led to the identification of a putative nanangenine biosynthetic gene cluster that corresponds to the proposed biosynthetic pathway for nanangenines.

Chemical investigation of the barley and wheat fungal pathogen Bipolaris sorokiniana BRIP10943 yielded four new sativene-type sesquiterpenoid natural products, bipolenins K–N (1–4), together with seven related known analogues (5–11), and a sesterterpenoid (12). Their structures were determined by detailed analysis of spectroscopic data, supported by TDDFT calculations and comparison with previously reported analogues. These compounds were evaluated for their phytotoxic activity against wheat seedlings and wheat seed germination. The putative biosynthetic relationships between the isolated sesquiterpenoids were also explored.

Our recent focus on the “lost antibiotic” unguinol and related nidulin-family fungal natural products identified two semisynthetic derivatives, benzguinols A and B, with unexpected in vitro activity against Staphylococcus aureus isolates either susceptible or resistant to methicillin. Here, we show further activity of the benzguinols against methicillin-resistant isolates of the animal pathogen Staphylococcus pseudintermedius, with minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) ranging 0.5–1 μg/mL. When combined with sub-inhibitory concentrations of colistin, the benzguinols demonstrated synergy against Gram-negative reference strains of Acinetobacter baumannii, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (MICs of 1–2 μg/mL in the presence of colistin), whereas the benzguinols alone had no activity. Administration of three intraperitoneal (IP) doses of 20 mg/kg benzguinol A or B to mice did not result in any obvious adverse clinical or pathological evidence of acute toxicity. Importantly, mice that received three 20 mg/kg IP doses of benzguinol A or B at 4 h intervals exhibited significantly reduced bacterial loads and longer survival times than vehicle-only treated mice in a bioluminescent S. aureus murine sepsis challenge model. We conclude that the benzguinols are potential candidates for further development for specific treatment of serious bacterial infections as both stand-alone antibiotics and in combination with existing antibiotic classes.

The recent success of small-molecule kinase inhibitors as anticancer drugs has generated significant interest in their application to other clinical areas, such as disorders of the central nervous system (CNS). However, most kinase inhibitor drug candidates investigated to date have been ineffective at treating CNS disorders, mainly due to poor blood⁻brain barrier (BBB) permeability. It is, therefore, imperative to evaluate new chemical entities for both kinase inhibition and BBB permeability. Over the last 35 years, marine biodiscovery has yielded 471 natural products reported as kinase inhibitors, yet very few have been evaluated for BBB permeability. In this study, we revisited these marine natural products and predicted their ability to cross the BBB by applying freely available open-source chemoinformatics and machine learning algorithms to a training set of 332 previously reported CNS-penetrant small molecules. We evaluated several regression and classification models, and found that our optimised classifiers (random forest, gradient boosting, and logistic regression) outperformed other models, with overall cross-validated model accuracies of 80%⁻82% and 78%⁻80% on external testing. All 3 binary classifiers predicted 13 marine-derived kinase inhibitors with appropriate physicochemical characteristics for BBB permeability.

Reverse chemical proteomics combines affinity chromatography with phage display and promises to be a powerful new platform technology for the isolation of natural product receptors, facilitating the drug discovery process by rapidly linking biologically active small molecules to their cellular receptors and the receptors’ genes. In this paper we review chemical proteomics and reverse chemical proteomics and show how these techniques can add value to natural products research. We also report on techniques for the derivatisation of polystyrene microtitre plates with cleavable linkers and marine natural products that can be used in chemical proteomics or reverse chemical proteomics. Specifically, we have derivatised polystyrene with palau’amine and used reverse chemical proteomics to try and isolate the human receptors for this potent anticancer marine drug.

Dust has been widely recognised as an important source of nutrients in the marine environment and as a vector for transporting pathogenic microorganisms. Disturbingly, in the wake of a dust storm event along the eastern Australian coast line in 2009, the Continuous Plankton Recorder collected masses of fungal spores and mycelia (~150,000 spores/m3) forming a floating raft that covered a coastal area equivalent to 25 times the surface of England. Cultured A. sydowii strains exhibited varying metabolite profiles, but all produced sydonic acid, a chemotaxonomic marker for A. sydowii. The Australian marine fungal strains share major metabolites and display comparable metabolic diversity to Australian terrestrial strains and to strains pathogenic to Caribbean coral. Secondary colonisation of the rafts by other fungi, including strains of Cladosporium, Penicillium and other Aspergillus species with distinct secondary metabolite profiles, was also encountered. Our bioassays revealed that the dust-derived marine fungal extracts and known A. sydowii metabolites such as sydowic acid, sydowinol and sydowinin A adversely affect photophysiological performance (Fv/Fm) of the coral reef dinoflagellate endosymbiont Symbiodinium. Different Symbiodinium clades exhibited varying sensitivities, mimicking sensitivity to coral bleaching phenomena. The detection of such large amounts of A. sydowii following this dust storm event has potential implications for the health of coral environments such as the Great Barrier Reef.

An Australian marine sediment-derived isolate, Nocardiopsissp. (CMB-M0232), yielded a new class of prenylated diketopiperazine, indicative of the action of a uniquely regioselective diketopiperazine indole prenyltransferase. The bridged scaffold of nocardioazine A proved to be a noncytotoxic inhibitor of the membrane protein efflux pump P-glycoprotein, reversing doxorubicin resistance in a multidrug resistant colon cancer cell. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chemical analysis of a marine-derived Streptomycessp. (CMB-M0423) isolated from beach sand off Heron Island, Australia, yielded three new members of the rare pyrroloterpene biosynthetic structure class. Identified by detailed spectroscopic analysis as the first reported examples of naturally occurring 2-nitropyrroles, heronapyrroles A−C (1−3) displayed promising biological activitywith low to submicromolar IC50activity against Gram-positive bacteria but no cytotoxicity toward mammalian cell lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chemical fractionation of a southern Australian marine sponge, Trachycladus laevispirulifer, yielded 9-(5′-deoxy-5′-thio-β-d-xylofuranosyl)adenine disulfide as the first recorded natural occurrence of a nucleoside disulfide, and only the second of a xylo-nucleoside. Structure elucidation of the disulfide was achieved by detailed spectroscopic analysis and comparison to synthetic model compounds. The antibacterial, antifungal, and anticancer properties of the disulfide are documented and the literature surrounding natural and synthetic thionucleosides is reviewed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chemical analysis of a Streptomycessp. (CMB-MQ030) isolated from a Fijian marine sediment yielded two new diketopiperazines, naseseazines A and B (1, 2), featuring a new dimeric framework. Structures were determined by detailed spectroscopic analysis and C3Marfey’s analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four new alkaloids have been isolated during chemical investigations into a southern Australian marine sponge, Stellettasp. Detailed spectroscopic analysis, supported by chemical degradation and partial synthesis, permitted structure elucidation of bistellettazines A−C ( 1− 3), the first reported examples of terpenyl-pyrrolizidine conjugates, and bistellettazole A ( 4), a unique cyclic terpenyl-imidazole conjugate. The alkaloids 1− 4feature unprecedented carbon skeletons that are proposed to share a common convergent biosynthetic origin, arising via the biogenic equivalent of a Diels−Alder addition between two hypothetical polyenyl norsesquiterpene precursors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aspergillus hancockii sp. nov., classified in Aspergillus subgenus Circumdati section Flavi, was originally isolated from soil in peanut fields near Kumbia, in the South Burnett region of southeast Queensland, Australia, and has since been found occasionally from other substrates and locations in southeast Australia. It is phylogenetically and phenotypically related most closely to A. leporis States and M. Chr., but differs in conidial colour, other minor features and particularly in metabolite profile. When cultivated on rice as an optimal substrate, A. hancockii produced an extensive array of 69 secondary metabolites. Eleven of the 15 most abundant secondary metabolites, constituting 90% of the total area under the curve of the HPLC trace of the crude extract, were novel. The genome of A. hancockii, approximately 40 Mbp, was sequenced and mined for genes encoding carbohydrate degrading enzymes identified the presence of more than 370 genes in 114 gene clusters, demonstrating that A. hancockii has the capacity to degrade cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin, pectin, starch, chitin, cutin and fructan as nutrient sources. Like most Aspergillus species, A. hancockii exhibited a diverse secondary metabolite gene profile, encoding 26 polyketide synthase, 16 nonribosomal peptide synthase and 15 nonribosomal peptide synthase-like enzymes.