Epicolactone - Natural Product Isolated from the Sugarcane Endophytic Fungus Epicoccum nigrum (Eur. J. Org. Chem. 27/2012)

The cover picture shows on the left-hand side, sugarcane growing in S. Paulo, Brazil, from which the endophytic fungus Epicoccum nigrum was isolated. A picture of this fungus growing on an agar plate is also shown. The X-ray crystallographic structure of epicolactone, a novel E. nigrum pentacyclic metabolite isolated from an ethyl acetate extract, is depicted on the right-hand side. Evidence suggests that epicolactone is produced through a polyketide synthase (PKS) biosynthetic pathway. Details are discussed in the article by A. J. Marsaioli et al. on p. 5225 ff. We thank Yara Gomes Pereira Aparicio for the cover picture design.