image: Colony morphology of Aspergillus luteorubrus grown on agar media (top left and centre) and microscopic features observed by light microscopy (top right), showing characteristic conidiophores and conidia. The lower panel shows representative secondary metabolites produced by A. luteorubrus.
Credit: Fungal Planet description sheets 1042–1111. Figure adapted from Crous et al. (2020), Persoonia. https://doi.org/10.3767/persoonia.2020.44.11.
Fungi are a major source of natural products used in medicine, agriculture, and industry, but conventional discovery methods typically capture only what a fungus produces under standard laboratory conditions. As a result, many biosynthetic pathways remain hidden, particularly in newly identified species whose chemical diversity has yet to be explored.
The study, published in Mycology, was led by Dr. Yit-Heng Chooi from The University of Western Australia, in collaboration with Microbial Screening Technologies Pty Ltd and colleagues from Macquarie University. Using a metabologenomic approach, the researchers examined the endemic Australian fungus Aspergillus luteorubrus and found that it harbours far greater chemical diversity than traditional metabolite screening alone would reveal.
Genome sequencing of A. luteorubrus revealed a large number of biosynthetic gene clusters linked to secondary metabolite production. Chemical profiling showed that ten metabolites were isolated from the fungus, including a newly identified compound, luteolactone A. The contrast between the number of detected compounds and the much larger set of biosynthetic genes indicates that much of the A. luteorubrus chemical potential remains unexpressed.
Comparisons with closely related Aspergillus species showed that A. luteorubrus possesses distinct biosynthetic pathways, with several gene clusters absent from its nearest relatives, including clusters linked to the production of compounds such as luteodienoside A and viridicatumtoxin A. This finding illustrates how even closely related fungi can evolve unique chemical repertoires and highlights the value of combining genomics and chemistry to uncover hidden natural product diversity.
Together, these results position A. luteorubrus as a promising target for genome mining and the discovery of novel bioactive fungal metabolites. More broadly, the study shows how integrated genomic and chemical approaches can accelerate the search for new natural products from understudied fungal species.
See the article:
Metabologenomic profiling of the endemic Australian fungus Aspergillus luteorubrus.
https://doi.org/10.1080/21501203.2026.2613528
Article Title
Metabologenomic profiling of the endemic Australian fungus Aspergillus luteorubrus
Article Publication Date
28-Feb-2026