Antimicrobial compounds were isolated from the secondary metabolites of Gordonia, a resident of intestinal tract of Periplaneta americana

Gordonia sp. are members of the actinomycete family, their contribution to the environment improvement and environmental protection by their biological degradation ability, but there are few studies on the antimicrobial activity of their secondary metabolites. Our team isolated and purified an actinomycete WA 4-31 from the intestinal tract of Periplaneta americana, firstly identified the strain WA 4-31 by the morphological characteristics and the phylogenetic analyses, and found it was completely homologous to the strain of Gordonia terrae from the Indian desert. Meanwhile, actinomycin D (1), actinomycin X2 (2), mojavensin A (3) and cyclic (leucine-leucne) dipeptide (4) were obtained from the EtOAc extract from the broth of WA 4-31. Compounds 1–4 showed anti-fungus activities against Candida albicans, Aspergillus niger, A. fumigatus and Trichophyton rubrum, also anti-MRSA and inhibited Escherichia coli in different degree. Interestingly, we found when 3 was mixed with 4 with ratio of 1:1, the activity of the mixture on anti-Candida albicans was better than the single. Besides, compounds 1–3 had varying degrees of antiproliferative activities on CNE-2 and HepG-2 cell lines. These indicated that Gordonia rare actinomycete from the intestinal tract of Periplaneta americana possessed a potential as a source of active secondary metabolites. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13568-021-01272-y.