Roseophilin, 1 a cytotoxic pigment produced by Streptomyces griseoviridis 2464-S5, has a unique structure containing two pyrrole and one furan rings as shown in Figure 1. The strain also produces a structurally related tripyrrole antibiotic, prodigiosin R1. 2 Recently, we identified the rph gene cluster for prodigiosin biosynthesis in S. griseoviridis. 3 The rph cluster, however, does not contain genes characteristic of roseophilin biosynthesis, although roseophilin is considered to be biosynthesized partially with the same pathway as prodigiosin R1. We attempted to search the biosynthetic intermediates of roseophilin for further biosynthetic study. Color-guided fractionation of the culture extract resulted in the isolation of a new metabolite, dechlororoseophilin (1, Figure 1). We report herein the fermentation, isolation, structure elucidation and biological activity of 1.The producing organism was cultivated in 500-ml Erlenmeyer flasks containing 100 ml of a medium consisting of glycerol 4.0%, soybean meal 1.5%, molasses 1% and calcium carbonate 0.4% (pH 6.8) on a rotary shaker at 27 1C for 5 days. The fermentation broth (2.0 l) was centrifuged and the mycelium was extracted with acetone. After evaporation, the aqueous concentrate was extracted with ethyl acetate. The extract was applied to a silica gel column, which was washed with chloroform-methanol (10:1) and eluted with chloroform-methanol-29% ammonia water (200:20:1). The eluted pigment was subjected to reversed-phase HPLC (XBridge C 18 , Waters Corporation, Milford, MA, USA) using 88% methanol with 0.2% triethylamine. A pigment fraction was concentrated and dissolved in ethyl acetate. After the solution was washed with 0.1 M hydrochloric acid and water, the organic layer was concentrated to dryness to give a red powder of 1 (8.2 mg). The physico-chemical properties of 1 are summarized as follows: m.p. 81-86 1C; high-resolution FAB-MS m/z 419.2697 (MH + , calcd for C 27 H 35 N 2 O 2 , 419.2701); UV l max (e) 536 nm (142 000) in methanol, 536 nm (143 000) in 0.01 M HCl-methanol, 300 nm (43 400), 485 nm (42 100) in 0.01 M NaOH-methanol; IR (KBr) n max 3450, 2910, 1590, 1290 cm À1 .The molecular formula of 1 was established as C 27 H 34 N 2 O 2 by high-resolution FAB-MS. 13 C and 1 H NMR data for 1 are summarized in Table 1. All one-bond 1 H-13 C connectivities were confirmed by the heteronuclear multiple-quantum coherence (HMQC) 4 spectrum. COSY and heteronuclear multiple-bond correlation (HMBC) 5 experiments identified three partial structures as shown in Figure 2. Three aromatic protons (1-H-3-H) were coupled with each other and an exchangeable proton (1-NH) was coupled with 1-H. A pyrrole moiety was constructed by 1 H-13 C long-range correlations from 1-H to C-2, C-3 and C-4, from 2-H to C-1 and C-4, and from 3-H to C-1 and C-4. NOESY correlations on 1-H, 2-H and 3-H confirmed the structure of a 2-pyrrolyl group and their assignments. 1 H-13 C long-range couplings were observed from 6-H to C-5, C-7 and C-8, and from a methoxy proton (27-H 3 ) to C-7. A...