The fungus
Emericella nidulans var.
acristata was isolated as an endophyte from a Mediterranean green alga. Cultivationof this fungus yielded two new compounds, arugosins G (
1) and H (
2), together with the known metabolites
3-
9.Arugosins (
1-
4) are benzophenone derivatives, biosynthetically related to the xanthones
5,
6, and
9. The indole alkaloid
7 displayed antitumor activity in a panel of 36 human tumor cell lines, exhibiting a mean IC
50 value of 5.5
g/mL inan in vitro survival and proliferation assay. Furthermore, compounds
3 and
4 showed moderate antitumor activity towardindividual tumor cell lines. None of compounds
1-
8 exhibited any immunostimulatory activity assessed as the capacityto induce cytokines in PBMCs from healthy donors.