Beauvericin is a cyclic hexadepsipeptide mycotoxin, which has insecticidal, antimicrobial, antiviral and cytotoxic activities. It is a potential agent for pesticides and medicines. This paper reviews the bioactivity, fermentation and biosynthesis of the fungal product beauvericin.

This paper reviews 116 new compounds with antifungal or antibacterial activities as well as 169 other known antimicrobial compounds, with a specific focus on January 2010 through March 2015. Furthermore, the phylogeny of the fungi producing these antibacterial or antifungal compounds was analyzed. The new methods used to isolate marine fungi that possess antibacterial or antifungal activities as well as the relationship between structure and activity are shown in this review.

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Aims:  The aim of the study was to isolate and characterize the endophytic fungi from the rhizomes of the Chinese traditional medicinal plant Dioscorea zingiberensis and to detect their antibacterial activities. Methods and Results:  After strict sterile sample preparation, nine fungal endophytes were isolated from rhizomes of the Chinese traditional medicinal plant D. zingiberensis. The endophytes were classified by morphological traits and internal transcribed spacer (ITS) rRNA gene sequence analysis. Their ITS rDNA sequences were 99–100% identical to Nectria, Fusarium, Rhizopycnis, Acremonium and Penicillium spp. respectively. Of these, the most frequent genera were Fusarium and Nectria. One isolate, Dzf7, was unclassified on the basis of its low sequence similarity. The next closest species was Alternaria longissima (c. 92·4% sequence similarity). Endophyte isolate Dzf5 showed the closest sequence similarity (c. 99·5%) to an uncultured soil fungus () obtained from Cedar Creek, USA. Bioassays using a modified broth dilution test were used to detect the antibacterial activity of n‐butanol extracts of both mycelia and culture filtrates of D. zingiberensis showed biological activity against Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus haemolyticus, Escherichia coli and Xanthomonas vesicatoria. Minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) values of the extracts were between 31·25 μg ml−1 and 125 μg ml−1. Conclusions:  Endophytic fungus Dzf2 (c. 99·8% sequence similarity to Fusarium redolens) isolated from D. zingiberensis rhizome showed the most potent antibacterial activities. Significance and Impact of the Study:  Endophytic fungi isolated from D. zingiberensis may be used as potential producers of antibacterial natural products.

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