Abstract: |
Mycophenolic acid (MPA) is the active ingredient in the most important immunosuppressive pharmaceuticals.
It has antifungal, antibacterial, antiviral, anti-psoriasis, and antitumor activities. Therefore, its overproduction
in addition to gene expression analysis was our main target. Through this study, we isolated a novel potent
mycophenolic acid (MPA) producer strain of the genus Penicillium from the refrigerated Mozzarella cheese and
it was identified with the molecular marker ITS and benA genes as P. arizonenseHEWt1. Three MPA overproducer
mutants were isolated by exposing the wild type to different doses of gamma-rays, and the fermentation
conditions for the highest production of MPA were optimized. The results indicated that MPA amounts produced
by the mutants MT1, MT2, and MT3 were increased by 2.1, 1.7, and 1.6-fold, respectively, compared with the wildtype.
The growth of both mutant and wild-type strains on PD broth, adjusted to pH 6 and incubated at 25 °C for
15 d, were the best conditions for maximum production of MPA. In a silico study, five orthologs genes of MPA
biosynthesizing gene clusters in P. brevicompactum were predicted from the genome of P. arizonense. Sequencing
and bioinformatic analyses proved the presence of five putative genes namely mpaA, mpaC, mpaF, mpaG, and
mpaH in the P. arizonense HEWt1 genome. Gene expression analysis by qRT-PCR indicated an increase in the
transcription value of all annotated genes in the three mutants over the wild type. A highly significant increase in
the gene expression of mpaC, mpaF, and mpaH was observed in P. arizonense-MT1 compared with wild-type. These
results confirmed the positive correlation of these genes in MPA biosynthesis and are the first report regarding the
production of MPA by P. arizonense.
|
|
|