Screening of Filamentous Fungi to Identify Biocatalysts for Lupeol Biotransformation

Abstract

The goal of the study was to evaluate the ability of filamentous fungi to biotransform the pentacyclic triterpene lupeol. The microbial transformations were carried out in shake flasks in different media. Experiments were also run with control flasks. Samples of each culture were taken every 24 hours, extracted with ethyl acetate, and analyzed by GC-MS. The biotransformation of lupeol by Aspergillus ochraceus and Mucor rouxii afforded two compounds in each culture, which were detected in the cultures developed for more than seven days only in the Koch’s K1 medium. The obtained data demonstrated that A. ochraceus is a good biocatalyst to introduce double bonds in the lupeol structure, whereas M. rouxii exhibits ability to biocatalyze oxygen insertions in that pentacyclic triterpene. Mass spectrometry was demonstrated to be an efficient analytical method to select promising biocatalysts for the compound investigated in this study. The biotransformation processes were influenced by the culture medium and incubation period. The obtained results open the perspective of using A. ochraceus and M. rouxii in pentacyclic triterpene biotransformations.

Chemical Constituents of Non-Polar Fractions Obtained from Cnidoscolus quercifolius Pohl (Euphorbiaceae), a Medicinal Plant Native from the Brazilian Caatinga Biome

“…20 For lupeol and diploptene, spectral data contributed significantly to their characterization through detection of molecular ions (m/z 426 and m/z 410, respectively) and base peaks (m/z 191 and m/z 218, respectively). 21,22 Besides these, other characteristic fragments are shown in figure 7. Paula et al 14 In the mass spectra of kaur-16-ene, it was observed a molecular ion peak (m/z 272), compatible with the molecular formula C20H32.…”

Terpenoid biotransformations by Mucor species

“…Modification of the triterpenoid structure may produce potentially new and interesting derivatives. Synthetic approaches can be used, but biotransformation processes have been used in order to target positions which are more difficult to functionalize using chemical methods (Carvalho et al 2010).…”

Direct Biotransformation of Dioscin into Diosgenin in Rhizome of Dioscorea zingiberensis by Penicillium dioscin

“…Research on production of bioactive compounds through fungi biotransformation had been a hot point in biomedicine field [8][9][10][11][12]. However, to our knowledge, there were very few reports on screening of microorganism of highly efficient biotransformation of dioscin to diosgenin and no reports on direct biotransformation of RDZ, which was simple and more practical.…”