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From BIOL 2P96 Jan 2013 Group 06

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Fungi in pharmaceuticals

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Fungal products found in pharmaceuticals

Taxol

Chemical structure of taxol.

Originally isolated in 1971, Taxol, or Paclitaxe as it is now referred to as, was found to have anti-tumour properties and is an important agent in chemotherapy ^[1]. Taxol was first harvested from yew trees, Taxus brevifolia from the inner bark, however, the demand caused a marked rise in price. As a result, alternative means for producing taxol were explored; one being production of taxol from microbial cultures. The fungi, Pestalotiopsis microspora, collected from Taxus wallachiana, was found to produce taxol in culture^[2]. P. microspora was able to produce 60-70 μg of taxol per litre of fungal culture. Its production peaked at roughly the 3 week mark and declined drastically at 5 weeks. Although the amount of taxol produced was one order of magnitude less than that harvested from T. brevifolia, the accessibly of growing a fungal culture in terms of space and time far exceeds that of harvesting from yew trees.

Statins

Biochemical pathway of cholesterol synthesis and effect of statins on pathway.

Statins are a group of secondary metabolites that are used to lower low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol. Mevastatin was the first statin to be isolated in 1976 from . These compounds work by inhibiting 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-CoA (HMG-CoA)reductase, which is the rate-limiting enzyme for cholesterol synthesisPenicillium citrinum and P. brevicompactum^[3]. Other statins that have been isolated or synthesized include, lovastatin, fluvastatin, pravastatin and simvastatin, which all act in similar fashions to lower LDL cholesterol ^[4].

Terms and Definitions

• Endophytic: Endophytic refers to fungi or bacteria that lives symbiotically with plants without causing any harmful effects to the plant.

Notes and References

1. ↑ Wani, M., Taylor, H., Wall, M., Coggon, P., & McPhail, A. (1971). Plant antitumour agents. VI. The isolation and structure of taxol, a novel antileukemic and antitumor agent from Taxus brevifolia. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 93(9), 2325-2327.
2. ↑ Strobel, G., Yang, X., Sears, J., Kramer, R., Sidhu, R., & Hess, W. (1996). Taxol from Pestalotiopsis microspora, and enndophytic fungus of Taxis wallachiana. Microbiology, 142, 435-440.
3. ↑ Manzoni, M., Bergomi, S., Rollini, M., & Cavazzoni, V. (1999). Production of statins by filamentous fungi. Biotechnology Letters, 21, 253-257.
4. ↑ Endo, A. (2004). The origin of statins. International Congress Series, 1262, 3-8.

notes

Can everyone add their names and emails to the discussion, just so we can organize the work and what not better.

I was thinking we could split this page into three sections: First being a brief introduction/history, probably talk about penicillin since that's the most commonly known use then become more specific with the other two sections. The other two could be techniques to extract fungal products for pharmaceuticals and the last section could be specific examples of fungi, what they're used for, how they create the substance of interest, etc. Thoughts?

Judith, can you copy and paste your section from "new page" to the main page? I would do it, but they look at the history for marking and I don't want to take your credit :P And do you have references for the info??