Bioactive metabolites from Stenocarpella maydis, a stalk and ear rot pathogen of maize

Stenocarpella maydis is a fungal pathogen of major importance that causes a dry-rot of maize ears and is associated with a neuromycotoxicosis in cattle grazing harvested maize fields in southern Africa and Argentina. In an effort to investigate the potential roles of S. maydis metabolites in the fungal disease cycle, ethyl acetate extracts of solid-substrate fermentations of several S. maydis isolates from maize grown in the United States were found to exhibit significant phytotoxic, antifungal, and antiinsectan activity. Chemical investigations of extracts of S. maydis isolates from Illinois and Nebraska led to the isolation or detection of the known metabolites diplodiatoxin, chaetoglobosins K and L, and (all-E)-trideca-4,6,10,12-tetraene-2,8-diol as major components. A culture of Stenocarpella macrospora from maize grown in Zambia produced diplosporin and chaetoglobosins K and L as major components that were isolated. Diplodiatoxin produced significant lesions in a maize leaf puncture wound assay. Diplosporin and chaetoglobosin K displayed moderate antiinsectan activity in dietary assays against the fall armyworm Spodoptera frugiperda, while chaetoglobosin K exhibited significant antifungal activity against Aspergillus flavus and Fusarium verticillioides. Using LC-ESIMS and 1H NMR data, diplodiatoxin was detected as a major component in S. maydis-rotted grain, stalks, and stalk residues. This constitutes the first report of chaetoglobosins K and L from S. maydis, of (all-E)-trideca-4,6,10,12-tetraene-2,8-diol from Stenocarpella, and the first reported detection of diplodiatoxin, or any other Stenocarpella metabolite, in diseased maize seeds and stalk tissues.