Acremonium sp. TS7 on corn meal agar (on the left) and nutrition-reduced malt extract agar, both prepared with filtered seawater. Photo courtesy of Marte Jenssen, University of Tromsø - The Arctic University of Norway.

Acremonium is an omnipresent genus of filamentous fungi consisting of at least 100 species. Acremonium species live by degrading dead organic material or by acting as symbionts or pathogens of other organisms and contribute to global geochemical cycles and population dynamics of their hosts. The strain TS7 has been isolated from a marine sponge (Stelletta normani) sampled at a depth of 1,350 m in the Atlantic Ocean, off the west coast of Ireland. The strain has subsequently displayed strong antimicrobial activity against several human-pathogenic bacteria, including gram-positive and -negative strains, which makes it of particular interest with possible utility for pharmaceutical applications. The strain is of special interest due to the highly interesting bioactivity combined with the extreme source environment from which the fungus was isolated.