Chromatographic separation of extracts from the fungal biomass of a plant pathogenic fungus, Myrothecium roridum, yielded 8 trichothecene toxins including 6 type D trichothecenes (1–6) and 2 type A trichothecenes (7–8). 6′,12′-Epoxymyrotoxin A (1) and 7′-hydroxymytoxin B (2) were new macrocyclic trichothecenes, while the other trichothecenes were identified as myrotoxin B (3), myrotoxin D hydrate (4), 2′,3′-epoxymyrothecine A (5), miotoxin A (6), and 2 trichothecenes lacking the macrocyclic lactone system, roridin L-2 (7) and trichoverritone (8). The structures of these mycotoxins were characterized using spectroscopic methods. The absolute configurations of 1 and 2 were determined by NOESY and a comparison of their experimental and calculated ECD spectra. Most of these mycotoxins (1–4 and 6) exhibited highly potent antimalarial activity against Plasmodium falciparum. They also showed strong cytotoxicity towards KB and NCI-H187 cell lines (IC50 0.60 – 112.28 nM), as well as the Vero cell line (IC50 1.50 – 46.51 nM).

Leaf blight disease of water hyacinth was observed and collected from different geographical areas of Thailand. The disease is caused by a fungal pathogen that was identified as Myrothecium roridum by using its morphological characteristics. The most effective fungal strains were evaluated for pathogenicity on water hyacinth under greenhouse and natural conditions. Myrothecium roridum isolate, Kamphaeng Sean Campus (KKFC) 448, was found to be the most virulent. Different fungal formulations were evaluated for their level of control of water hyacinth. The results showed that spore suspensions with 10% palm oil or 1% Tween 20 caused a higher level of disease severity, compared to spores applied in water alone. The host range of KKFC 448 was evaluated by using 77 plant species that belong to 40 plant families. The fungus did not cause disease on 74 economically important plants but did produce disease signs on water hyacinth and two other aquatic weeds, duckweed and water lettuce. Leaf blight occurs on water hyacinth leaves after being treated with crude extracts of M. roridum and it was indicated that secondary metabolites were released from the fungal mycelia. Myrothecium roridum that was grown on boiled paddy rice produced β-1,4-exoglucanase, β-1,4-endoglucanase, β-glucosidase, xylanase and pectinase more than M roridum that was grown on potato dextrose agar. The results indicated that M. roridum is a pathogen of water hyacinth and the fungus is capable of producing different enzymatic activities on potato dextrose agar and boiled paddy rice, which might be important for infection.

Paramyrothecium eichhorniae sp. nov. was observed and collected from Chiang Mai and Phetchaburi Provinces, Thailand. This new species is introduced based on morphological and molecular evidence. This fungus is characterized by its production of sporodochium conidiomata with a white setose fringe surrounding an olivaceous green to dark green slimy mass of conidia, penicillately branched conidiophores, and aseptate and cylindrical to ellipsoid conidia. Phylogenetic analyses of combined LSU rDNA, ITS rDNA, tef1 , rpb2 , tub2 and cmdA sequence data using maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood and Bayesian approaches placed the fungus in a strongly supported clade with other Paramyrothecium species in Stachybotryaceae (Hypocreales, Sordariomycetes). The descriptions of the species are accompanied by illustrations of morphological features, and a discussion of the related taxa is presented.

Myrothecium roridum isolates were evaluated for their effectiveness in controlling the aggressive water hyacinth and molecular identification was conducted using internal transcribed spacer (ITS) rDNA region and amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) markers. M. roridum isolates were collected from nine provinces of Thailand. Seventy isolates were included in the primary screening, using colonial growth rate and spore number measurement. The results indicate that five isolates were the most aggressive and so were selected to evaluate their effectiveness in controlling the water hyacinth. The result showed that M. roridum isolate KKFC 408 had significantly highest disease severity (P<0.05) and the highest reduction for the fresh weight of water hyacinth. These five isolates DNA were amplified and sequenced using ITS1 and ITS4 universal primer for species identification. The data analyzed showed that five sequences of M. roridum were in the same group agreeing with other sequences of M. roridum recorded in the GenBank database, which correlated to morphological observation results. The AFLP result indicated that fifteen isolates of M. roridum were divided into four subgroups which were not correlated to the geographical area.Key words: Amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP), internal transcribed spacer (ITS) of rDNA region, mycoherbicide.