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Miniaturized high-throughput conversion of fungal strain collections into chemically characterized extract libraries for antimicrobial discovery

Summary

Scientists developed a fast, automated method called FLECS-96 to screen hundreds of fungal species for antimicrobial compounds in a small 96-well plate format. The method combines fungal culture, chemical extraction, and analysis to identify promising candidates against resistant bacteria like Staphylococcus aureus. The team successfully identified two bioactive compounds from the fungi tested. This innovation could significantly speed up the discovery of new antibiotics to combat antibiotic-resistant infections.

Background

Antimicrobial resistance is a growing global health crisis, particularly among ESKAPE pathogens. Fungi represent an underexplored source of bioactive compounds for drug discovery. Traditional fungal culturing and extraction methods are laborious and slow, limiting the rate of new antimicrobial discoveries.

Objective

To develop FLECS-96, a high-throughput platform that efficiently converts fungal strain collections into chemically characterized extract libraries suitable for antimicrobial screening. The goal is to accelerate the identification of novel antimicrobial agents from fungal sources.

Results

SPE extraction demonstrated superior performance with high recovery rates and reproducibility. Metabolomic profiling revealed strain-specific metabolites and detected two bioactive compounds: 12-β-Hydroxychaetoviridin C from Chaetomium globosum and chaetocin A from Verticillium lateritium, both active against S. aureus. The workflow successfully screened 90 fungal strains and identified active compounds.

Conclusion

FLECS-96 provides an efficient, scalable solution for rapid conversion of fungal strain collections into assay-ready extract libraries with documented chemical composition. This integrated workflow accelerates antimicrobial lead discovery and is adaptable to other bioassays and therapeutic applications.
  • Published in:Frontiers in Chemistry,
  • Study Type:Methodological Development Study,
  • Source: PMC12263559, PMID: 40672527, doi: 10.3389/fchem.2025.1630332
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