**1. Introduction**

The influence of bioactive compounds from natural sources on human life has challenged scientists to research new environmental contexts and the associated biological diversity [1]. The ocean, as the largest frontier in biological exploration, represents one of the most favorable reservoirs of organisms producing secondary metabolites with biological activities [2]. The deep sea is an extreme environment; in this respect, its associated micro-organisms have grea<sup>t</sup> potential to produce natural products with novel biological properties [3].

The tea plant (*Camellia sinensis* L.) is an important commercial crop all over the world. However, the tea plant suffers from biotic stresses of some pathogenic fungi [4,5], which often exhibits severe damage of the blade tissue and discoloration of the leaves, common symptoms, including blight (*Exobasidium vexans* Massee), brown blight (*Colletotrichum camelliae* Massee), and red rust (*Cephaleuros parasiticus* Karst). These pathogenic fungi greatly reduce the quality of tea and damage human health [6–8].

**Citation:** Liu, S.-Z.; Xu, G.-X.; He, F.-M.; Zhang, W.-B.; Wu, Z.; Li, M.-Y.; Tang, X.-X.; Qiu, Y.-K. New Sorbicillinoids with Tea Pathogenic Fungus Inhibitory Effect from Marine-Derived Fungus *Hypocrea jecorina* H8. *Mar. Drugs* **2022**, *20*, 213. https://doi.org/10.3390/ md20030213

Academic Editors: Orazio Taglialatela-Scafati and Asunción Barbero

Received: 4 January 2022 Accepted: 12 March 2022 Published: 17 March 2022

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As part of our continuing exploration for structurally novel and biologically interesting secondary metabolites from marine microorganisms, the fungal strain *Hypocrea jecorina* H8 (*H. jecorina* H8) was isolated from mangrove sediments and showed potent inhibitory activity against tea pathogenic fungus *P. theae*.

Chemical investigation of *H. jecorina* H8 from rice medium led to the isolation of 11 compounds, including five sorbicillinoids (**1**–**5**) and six known sorbicillinoid analogs. Some of these compounds exhibited significant inhibitory activity against tea pathogenic fungus *P. theae*. and low toxicity to zebrafish. Herein, we report the isolation, structural determination, as well as antifungal activity of these isolated compounds.
