Epicoccum nigrum
Epicoccum nigrum Link, Mag. Gesell. naturf. Freunde, Berlin 7: 32 (1816) [1815].
Index Fungorum number: IF 226758; Facesoffungi number: FoF 02685, Fig. 1
Description: see Aveskamp et al. (2010); Chen et al. (2015).
Material considered: see Aveskamp et al. (2010); Chen et al. (2015).
Fig. 1 Epicoccum nigrum (MFLU 17-0359). a Appearance of synnemata on host substrate. b Vertical section of synnema. c, d Attachment of conidia to the conidiophores. e, f Conidia. Scale bars: b = 50 μm, c–f = 10 μm.
Importance and distribution
There are 98 Epicoccum epithets in Index Fungorum (2022), but several species have been transferred to Arthrinium, Lichenoconium, Petrakia, Phoma and Pseudoepicoccum. Epicoccum comprises 71 species known on wide range of plants. Epicoccum has a cosmopolitan distribution. Most Epicoccum species are saprobic but some taxa are phytopathogens, causing leaf spot disease in several host plants (Braga et al. 2018). Epicoccum has worldwide distribution.
Industrial relevance and applications
Epicoccum is also useful for medical and pharmaceutical industry as they produce anticancer drug, taxol and several other chemicals including antibiotics, antifungal compounds amongst others (El-Sayed et al. 2020). Epicoccum is also useful in agricultural industry as they can act as biocontrol agents. For example, E. nigrum is a biological control agent against Monilinia spp. in peaches and nectarines, against Sclerotinia sclerotiorum in sunflowers, and against Pythium in cotton (Larena et al. 2007).
Biochemical importance of the genus, chemical diversity or applications
Epicoccum produces wide range of chemicals such as Carotenoid (Elkhateeb & Daba 2019), diketopiperazines (Guo et al. 2009), Epicoccamides B-D, glycosylated tetramic acid derivatives (Wangun et al. 2007), Epicocconone which is used in cell staining and gel electrophoresis (Bell & Karuso 2003), Epicolactone (Ellerbrock et al. 2015), epicorazines A and B (Baute et al. 1978), Epipyrone A (Lee et al. 2020), polyketides such as Flavipin, Anti-inflammatory, Antiplatelet Aggregation, and Antiangiogenesis Polyketides (Li et al. 2020), Siderophores (Frederick et al. 1982) amongst others.
References
Aveskamp MM, de Gruyter J, Woudenberg JHC, Verkley GJM, Crous PW. 2010 – Highlights of the Didymellaceae: a polyphasic approach to characterise Phoma and related pleosporalean genera. Studies in Mycology 65, 1–60.
Baute MA, Deffieux G, Baute R, Neveu A. 1978 – New antibiotics from the fungus Epicoccum nigrum. I. Fermentation, isolation and antibacterial properties. The Journal of Antibiotics 31, 1099–1101.
Bell PJ, Karuso P. 2003 – Epicocconone, a novel fluorescent compound from the fungus Epicoccum nigrum. Journal of the American Chemical Society 125, 9304–5.
Braga RM, Padilla G, Araújo WL. 2018 – The biotechnological potential of Epicoccum spp. diversity of secondary metabolites. Critical Reviews in Microbiology 44, 759–778.
Chen Q, Jiang JR, Zhang GZ, Cai L, Crous PW. 2015 – Resolving the Phoma enigma. Studies in Mycology 82, 137–217.
Elkhateeb W, Daba G. 2019 – Epicoccum Species as Potent Factories for the Production of Compounds of Industrial, Medical and Biological Control Applications. Journal of Scientific Research 14, 1–5.
Ellerbrock P, Armanino N, Ilg MK, Webster R, Trauner D. 2015 – An eight-step synthesis of epicolactone reveals its biosynthetic origin. Nature Chemistry 7, 879–82.
El‐Sayed ER, Ahmed AS, Abdelhakim HK. 2020 – A novel source of the cardiac glycoside digoxin from the endophytic fungus Epicoccum nigrum: isolation, characterization, production enhancement by gamma irradiation mutagenesis and anticancer activity evaluation. Journal of applied microbiology 128, 747–762.
Frederick CB, Bentley MD, Shive W. 1982 – The structure of the fungal siderophore, isotriornicin. Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications 105, 133–138.
Guo H, Sun B, Gao H, Chen X, Liu S, Yao X, Liu X, Che Y. 2009 – Diketopiperazines from the Cordyceps-colonizing fungus Epicoccum nigrum. Journal of Natural Products 72, 2115–9.
Larena I, De Cal A, Melgarejo P. 2007 – Effects of stabilizers on shelf-life of Epicoccum nigrum formulations and their relationship with biocontrol of postharvest brown rot by Monilinia of peaches. Journal of Applied Microbiology 102, 570–582.
Lee AJ, Cadelis MM, Kim SH, Swift S, Copp BR, Villas-Boas SG. 2020 – Epipyrone A, a Broad-Spectrum Antifungal Compound Produced by Epicoccum nigrum ICMP 19927. Molecules 25, 5997.
Li CY, Chang CC, Tsai YH, El-Shazly M et al. 2020 – Anti-inflammatory, Antiplatelet Aggregation, and Antiangiogenesis Polyketides from Epicoccum sorghinum: Toward an Understating of Its Biological Activities and Potential Applications. ACS omega 5, 11092–11099.
Wangun HV, Dahse HM, Hertweck C. 2007 – Epicoccamides B-D, glycosylated tetramic acid derivatives from an Epicoccum sp. associated with the tree fungus Pholiota squarrosa. Journal of Natural Products 70, 1800–1803.
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