Diversity and pharmaceutical screening of fungi from benthic mats of Antarctic lakes.

During the MICROMAT project, the fungal diversity of microbial mats growing in the benthic environment of Antarctic lakes was accessed for the discovery of novel antibiotics and anticancers. In all, 160 filamentous fungi belonging to fifteen different genera and 171 yeasts were isolated from 11 lakes, classified and cultivated in different media and at different temperatures. Filamentous fungi were then screened to discover novel antimicrobial and cytotoxic compounds. A total of 1422 extracts were prepared by solid phase extraction of the culture broths or by biomass solvent extraction. 47 (29%) filamentous fungi showed antimicrobial activity; most of them inhibited the growth of gram-positive Staphyloccus aureus (14%), gram-negative E. coli (10%), and of yeasts Candida albicans (11%) and Cryptococcus neoformans (8%). Less activity was detected against representatives of enterobacteria and filamentous fungi. The most productive in terms of bioactivities were cold-tolerant cosmopolitan hyphomycetes such as Penicillium, Aspergillus, Beauveria and Cladosporium. Two bioactive bis-anthraquinones (rugulosin and skyrin) were identified by LC-MS as the main products in a strain of Penicillium chrysogenum isolated from a saline lake in the Vestfold Hills. LC-MS fractionation of extracts from two diverse species of Aspergillus, that exhibited relatively potent antimicrobial activities, evidenced a chemical novelty that was further investigated. To our knowledge, this is the first report of new antibiotics produced by fungi from benthic microbial mats from Antarctic lakes. It can be concluded that these microbial assemblages represent an extremely rich source for the isolation of new strains producing novel bioactive metabolites with the potential to be developed as drugs.