Tw ob ioactive merocytochalasans,e picochalasines A( 1)a nd B( 2), an ew class of cytochalasans bearing unexpected scaffolds consisting of fused aspochalasin and epicoccine dimer moieties,were isolated from the liquid culture broth of Aspergillus flavipes.B oth 1 and 2 possess ah endecacyclic 5/6/11/5/6/5/6/5/6/6/5 ring system containing an adamantyl cage and as many as 19 stereogenic centers;h owever, the fusion patterns of 1 and 2 differ greatly,t hus resulting in different carbon skeletons.T he absolute configurations of 1 and 2 were determined by X-ray diffraction and calculated ECD,r espectively.T he biogenetic pathwayso f1 and 2 are proposed to involve Diels-Alder and nucleophilic addition reactions.B oth 1 and 2 induced significant G2/M-phase cellcycle arrest. Furthermore,w ef ound that merocytochalasans induce apoptosis in leukemia cells through the activation of caspase-3 and the degradation of PARP.Cytochalasans have received considerable attention from both chemists and pharmacologists over the past 50 years because of their intriguing structures and potent biological activity, [1] which is exemplified by immunomodulatory, [2] cytotoxic, [3] and nematicidal activity.[4] To date,m ore than 200 cytochalasans have been reported, from various fungi origins,s uch as Chaetomium, Aspergillus,a nd Penicillium species.[1b] Epicoccine derivatives,especially their dimers,are ac lass of aromatic polyketides with diverse structures that exhibit numerous forms of bioactivity,f or example,a ntimicrobial, [5] antiviral, [6] and enzyme-inhibition activity. [5,7] Because of their considerable activity and intricate polycyclic structures,t he total synthesis of epicoccine dimers (e.g., dibefurin and epicolactone) has attracted considerable attention from the synthesis community.[8]During our continuous search for structurally intriguing and biologically valuable natural products from fungi, several fungi of different origins have been phytochemically investigated.[9] In our previous study on Aspergillus flavipes cultured on rice,w ed iscovered ac ytochalasan dimer (asperchalasine A, Scheme 1). [10] Considering that the fermentation of fungi under different conditions may lead to different secondary metabolites,w ef urther investigated the metabolites of A. flavipes cultured in al iquid culture broth. In this study,t wo novel merocytochalasans,e picochalasines A( 1) and B( 2;S cheme 1), with high degrees of functionalization and intricate polycyclics tructures,w ere isolated from the liquid culture broth of A. flavipes.Compounds 1 and 2 appear to belong to the same structural family.However,because of the 1808 8 rotation of the oxidized epicoccine moiety c (Scheme 2) in 2,t heir fusion patterns differ substantially, thus resulting in different carbon skeletons.M ost notably, compounds 1 and 2 are the first examples of cytochalasan adducts characterized by an adamantyl cage in ah endecacyclic 5/6/11/5/6/5/6/5/6/6/5 ring system formed by the polymerization of an epicoccine dimer with acytochalasan moiety.Herein, t...