During the course of our ongoing screening for novel biologically active secondary metabolites, the rare Actinobacterium, Nonomuraea sp. 1808210CR was found to produce five unprecedented β-carboline derivatives, nonocarbolines A–E (1–5). Their structures were elucidated from high-resolution mass spectrometry, 1D and 2D nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and the absolute configuration of 4 was determined by using the modified Mosher method. Nonocarboline B (2) displayed moderate antifungal activity against Mucor hiemalis, while nonocarboline D (4) exhibited significant cytotoxic activity against the human lung carcinoma cell line A-549 with the IC₅₀ value of 1.7 µM.

Morinda citrifolia fruit (Noni) has been used as a folk medicine in several countries. Noni possessed various pharmacological activities such as; anticancer, antidiabetic, antihypertensive, antarthritic, and antioxidants. The present study evaluated pharmacognostic properties, profiling of active constituent through High-Performance Thin Layer Chromatography (HPTLC) and Liquid Chromatography-High Resolution Mass Spectrometer (LC-HRMS) run for quantitative and qualitative phytochemical analysis and determining angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor activity of Noni from three different locations. The physicochemical parameters of crude drugs and extracts met the requirement of Indonesian Herbal Pharmacopeia. Total phenol content was 2.16-3.08 mg GAE/g extract and total flavonoid content was 0.11 - 1.58 mg QE/g extract. HPTLC analysis revealed that scopoletin content in Noni was in the range of 0.44 - 0.51%. The results were also corresponding well with LC-HRMS fingerprint analysis. In addition, Noni fruit extract from Bogor potential exhibited activity in inhibiting ACE with an IC50 value of 206.26 µg/mL.

Axenic fermentation on solid rice of the saprobic fungus Sparticola junci afforded two new highly oxidized naphthalenoid polyketide derivatives, sparticatechol A (1) and sparticolin H (2) along with sparticolin A (3). The structures of 1 and 2 were elucidated on the basis of their NMR and HR-ESIMS spectroscopic data. Assignment of absolute configurations was performed using electronic circular dichroism (ECD) experiments and Time-Dependent Density Functional Theory (TDDFT) calculations. Compounds 1–3 were evaluated for COX inhibitory, antiproliferative, cytotoxic and antimicrobial activities. Compounds 1 and 2 exhibited strong inhibitory activities against COX-1 and COX-2. Molecular docking analysis of 1 conferred favorable binding against COX-2. Sparticolin H (2) and A (3) showed a moderate antiproliferative effect against myelogenous leukemia K-562 cells and weak cytotoxicity against HeLa and mouse fibroblast cells.

Laying the groundwork on preliminary structure–activity relationship study relating to the disruptive activity of cytochalasan derivatives on mammalian cell actin cytoskeleton, we furthered our study on the cytochalasans of the Dothideomycetes fungus, Sparticola triseptata. A new cytochalasan analog triseptatin (1), along with the previously described cytochalasans deoxaphomin B (2) and cytochalasin B (3), and polyketide derivatives cis-4-hydroxy-6-deoxyscytalone (4) and 6-hydroxymellein (5) were isolated from the rice culture of S. triseptata. The structure of 1 was elucidated through NMR spectroscopic analysis and high-resolution mass spectrometry (HR-ESI-MS). The relative and absolute configurations were established through analysis of NOESY spectroscopic data and later correlated with experimental electronic circular dichroism and time-dependent density functional theory (ECD–TDDFT) computational analysis. Compounds 1 and 2 showed cytotoxic activities against seven mammalian cell lines (L929, KB3.1, MCF-7, A549, PC-3, SKOV-3, and A431) and antiproliferative effects against the myeloid leukemia K-562 cancer cell line. Both 1 and 2 were shown to possess properties inhibiting the F-actin network, prompting further hypotheses that should to be tested in the future to enable a well-resolved concept of the structural implications determining the bioactivity of the cytochalasin backbone against F-actin.

C ledgeriana is a medicinal plant that contains alkaloids, especially on the barks for commercial production of quinine as antimalarial. The main alkaloids in this plant are cinchonine, cinchonidine, quinine and quinidine. Besides for antiamalarial this plant is also commonly used to treat whooping cough, influenza and dysentery. Compare to other medicinal plants, nowadays only very few studies were conducted in Cinchona species. Our current study aims to determine the content of phytochemical, total phenol and total flavonoids from C. ledgeriana leaves 70% ethanol extract. The extraction was performed by maceration method using 70% ethanol solvent and then fractionated into hexane, ethylacetate and butanol. Phytochemical screening was performed to determine the content of alkaloids, flavonoids, terpenoids, tannins and saponins. Total phenol and flavonoid contents of the extract were determined by Folin-Ciocalteu and alumunium chloride colorimetric methods using gallic acid and quercetin as standards. The antioxidant activity was determined by using 2, 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging activity. The results of phytochemical screening showed that the 70% ethanol extract of C. ledgeriana leaves contained alkaloids, flavonoids, terpenoids, tannins and saponins. The total phenol and total flavonoids analysis showed that ethyl acetate fraction had the highest total phenol (40.23%) and total flavonoids (65.34%).

The bioassay-guided fractionation from cultures of the actinobacterium Saccharothrix xinjiangensis Act24Zk, collected from the Caspian Sea beach in Iran led to the isolation of three new compounds, caerulomycin M (1), saccharopyrone (2), and saccharonoic acid (3), together with the known compound, caerulomycin A (4). Their structures were elucidated from HR-ESIMS and 1D and 2D NMR data. Compound 2 displayed moderate cytotoxic activity against the human cervix carcinoma HeLa cells KB3.1 with an IC₅₀ value of 5.4 µM.