Chemical investigation of secondary metabolites from the marine-derived fungus Aspergillus austroafricanus Y32-2 resulted in the isolation of two new prenylated indole alkaloid homodimers, di-6-hydroxydeoxybrevianamide E (1) and dinotoamide J (2), one new pteridine alkaloid asperpteridinate A (3), with eleven known compounds (4-14). Their structures were elucidated by various spectroscopic methods including HRESIMS and NMR, while their absolute configurations were determined by ECD calculations. Each compound was evaluated for pro-angiogenic, anti-inflammatory effects in zebrafish models and cytotoxicity for HepG2 human liver carcinoma cells. As a result, compounds 2, 4, 5, 7, 10 exhibited pro-angiogenic activity in a PTK787-induced vascular injury zebrafish model in a dose-dependent manner, compounds 7, 8, 10, 11 displayed anti-inflammatory activity in a CuSO4-induced zebrafish inflammation model, and compound 6 showed significant cytotoxicity against HepG2 cells with an IC50 value of 30 µg/mL.
Keywords: Aspergillus austroafricanus; anti-inflammatory effects; marine-derived fungus; novel bioactive metabolites; pro-angiogenesis.