the basis of both the biological activity of their culture
extracts and of the secondary metabolites previously isolated
from the respective taxa. Structural elucidation of the
metabolites isolated from four of these strains was previously
reported (Ho$ ller, Ko$ nig &Wright 1999a, b). The conditions of
culture for the ®ve remaining isolates were optimized
individually for each fungal strain (Table 2). The entire culture
(medium and mycelium) was homogenised in a Waring
blender following the addition of 500 ml water l−" to the solid
media prior to homogenisation. Resultant mixtures were
extracted with EtOAc (3¬300 ml l−" medium) to yield crude
extracts.
Chemical investigations
The general experimental procedures were according to
Wright et al. (1996). All structures were determined by
spectroscopic methods, mainly by extensive 1D and 2D NMR
spectroscopy.
Compounds hitherto described were identi®ed by comparing
their spectroscopic data with published values. Isolation
and structural determination of the metabolites from Coniothyrium
sp. (compounds 4±11) (numbers as in Fig. 4),