Some Metabolic Products 

 of Basidiomycetes 



MARJORIE ANCHEL 



Investigation of the metabolic products of fungi has yielded results 

 of considerable chemical and biological interest and practical impor- 

 tance. The chemistry of the actinomycetes, penicillia, and aspergilli 

 has been studied intensively, but the chemistry of the higher fungi, 

 including the basidiomycetes, has received much less attention. The 

 compounds discussed in this paper were all obtained from culture 

 liquids of basidiomycete fungi. Their isolation was followed by 

 microbiological assay, specifically, activity against certain bacteria. 

 Had a chemical assay been used, it would be expected that the com- 

 pounds isolated would have in common some particular chemical 

 characteristic, although this might be only a small, even an insignifi- 

 cant, part of their general chemical make-up. Since the assay was 

 biological, a common denominator of biological activity must be ac- 

 cepted, namely, in this case, that the compound interferes with the 

 metabolism of the test organisms. Since it is to be expected that the 

 same gross biological effect may be arrived at by different mechanisms, 

 it is not surprising that compounds which have in common the prop- 

 erty of antibiotic activity are frequently entirely unrelated chemically. 

 Further, such compounds sometimes represent types which are unusual 

 from the point of view of synthetic organic chemistry as well as little 

 known from a biological standpoint. 



The antibiotic compounds isolated from the basidiomycetes investi- 

 gated at the New York Botanical Garden offer one more illustration 

 of these general conclusions, in that they represent diverse chemical 

 types, some of which have no exact synthetic counterparts, and/or are 

 biologically unfamiliar and, one might almost say, unexpected. On 

 the other hand, certain rough groupings may be made into which fall 

 the greater number of the compounds isolated. A surprisingly large 



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