Fungal Metabolites, Asterric Acid Derivatives Inhibit Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF)-induced Tube Formation of HUVECs

In the search for new naturally occurring anti-angiogenic compounds, we found that a culture broth of an unidentified fungal strain B90911 exerted inhibitory activity on capillarylike tube formation of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) in vitro. Four active compounds were isolated by bioassay-guided separation and their structures were identified to be sulochrin (1), methyl asterric acid (2), and two new asterric acid derivatives, 3-chloroasterric acid (3), and 3, 5-dichloroasterric acid (4) by spectroscopic analyses. These compounds significantly inhibited the VEGF-induced tube formation of HUVEC, suggesting that asterric derivatives could be useful for further study as anti-angiogenic agents.