sedicola. The genus Stemphylium, anamorphic Pleospora (Dothideomycetes), was proposed by Wallroth in 1833 with Stemphylium botryosum Wallr. as the type species. More than 33 species are recognized in this check details genus (Câmara et al., 2002), many of which are saprophytic, growing on dead plants and cellulose materials (Simmons, 1969), but several species, including S. botryosum, S. solani G.F. Weber, and S. vesicarium (Wallr.) E.G. Simmons, are plant pathogens that cause diseases in important agricultural crops and fruit trees. This is the first report to show that S. sedicola, a member of the genus Stemphylium isolated from T. baccata, has the potential

to produce anticancer compound taxol. Taxol is the best known and most studied member of the taxane diterpenoids, or taxoids, and has been used in chemotherapy for many types of cancers since the 1970s. Many endophytic fungi, which are widely

found in almost all kinds of plants including Taxus species, can produce physiologically active compounds, such as taxanes, which are the same or analogous with those obtained from their hosts (Lu et al., 2000; Glienke-Blanco et al., 2002; Strobel et al., 2004). This constitutes a selleck new approach to resolving resource limitation and an alternative taxol source. Indeed, it represents a great opportunity to find new and interesting endophytic microorganisms among Taxus species in different settings and ecosystems. Taxol is known to be produced by a number of endophytic fungi, including the following families reported in the literature (Zhao et al.,

2008; Zhou et al., 2010): Hypocreaceae, Nectriaceae, Amphisphaeriaceae, Pleosporaceae, Chaetomiaceae, Kickxellaceae, Trichocomaceae, Clavicipitaceae, Thyridiaceae, and Xylariaceae. The genus Stemphylium has not been previously reported PRKACG from Taxus species, although both saprotrophic and pathogenic forms of Stemphylium occur in a wide range of plants and many species are economically damaging pathogens of agricultural crops (Câmara et al., 2002). Additionally, Stemphylium species are known sources of bioactive compounds, including the cytotoxic and protein kinase-inhibiting alterporriols G and H (Debbab et al., 2009), the antibacterial perylenequinones, stemphyltoxins I-IV (Arnone et al., 1986), as well as the phytotoxic chromone glucoside, stemphylin (Barash et al., 1975). In this study, based on morphological and molecular data as well as phytochemical analysis, S. sedicola SBU-16 was determined as a new strain of taxol-producing endophytic fungi. Quantitative HPLC analysis showed that the taxol content of S. sedicola SBU-16 was in the range of previously reported fungi (Stierle et al., 1993; Guo et al., 2006; Gangadevi et al., 2008), indicating its promising potential for taxol production.