Studies on production of fungal secondary metabolite lovastatin

Natural products are important sources for new medicines and numerous bioactive natural compounds have been discovered from plants, microorganisms and marine sources. Approximately 60% of natural products or products derived and modified from such sources are currently being used in treatments of cancer and infectious diseases. Notable examples from fungal sources are multibillion dollar classes of antibiotics that include penicillins and cephalosporins, the important and widely used cholesterol-lowering agents lovastatin, compactin, and pravastatin, and the immunosuppressant cyclosporine-A. The market of drugs reached US$ 400 billion per year in 2005, with a steady yearly increase of more than 5%. Secondary metabolites from fungi and actinomycetes have provided us a huge array of important structures for various pharmaceutical purposes during the half of twentieth century. Lovastatin is a cholesterol lowering agents produced as a secondary metabolite by a number of molds. Aspergillus terreus is widely used for the fermentation of lovastatin. Statins block the enzyme called hydroxyl-methyl glutaryl-coenzyme A reductase (HMG-CoA reductase) responsible for making cholesterol in the liver. The hypocholesterolemic effect of statins lies in the reduction of LDL (low-density lipoprotein) and increase in HDL (high-density lipoprotein). Of all the statins known today, only two are produced by fermentation de novo. These are lovastatin (also called mevinolin, monacolin-K or mevacor) and compactin (also called as mevastatin, or ML-236B). All the other statins are produced by chemically or enzymatically derivatising lovastatin or compactin.