Preparative separation and purification of fumigaclavine C from fermented mycelia of Aspergillus fumigatus CY018 by macroporous adsorption resin.

In this work, the separation and purification of fumigaclavine C (FC), an ergot alkaloid with strong anti-inflammatory activity from fermented mycelia of Aspergillus fumigatus was systematically evaluated. Among the eight tested resins, the non-polar resin D101 displayed the best adsorption and desorption based on of static adsorption and desorption tests. Adsorption isotherms were constructed on D101 resin and fitted well to the Freundlich model. Dynamic adsorption and desorption tests on a column packed with D101 resin have been investigated for optimization of chromatographic parameters. Under optimized conditions, the contents of FC increased from 7.32% (w/w) in the crude extract to 67.54% in the final product with a recovery yield of 90.35% (w/w) via one run. Furthermore, a lab scale-up separation was carried out, in which the FC content and recovery yield were 65.83% and 90.13%, respectively. These results demonstrated that this adsorption-desorption strategy by using D101 resin was simple and efficient, thus showing potential for large scale purification and preparation of FC in the future.

Enhanced production of fumigaclavine C by ultrasound stimulation in a two-stage culture of Aspergillus fumigatus CY018.

Stimulation by physical means including ultrasound is important to cell morphology and the product yield. In this work, the effect of ultrasound on the production of fumigaclavine C (FC), a conidiation-associated alkaloid with strong anti-inflammatory activity, was investigated in a newly developed two-stage culture of Aspergillus fumigatus CY018. The optimum ultrasonication conditions consisted of exposing cultures (at 12h of growth phase) to 10-min repeated irradiation (4 times) with a 24-h interval at the fixed power (500 W). Under this condition, FC production reached 118.09 mg/L, which was 89% higher than the control and much higher than previous reported values. Morphological analysis demonstrated that mycelia morphology from ultrasonication was in the form smaller and looser pellets as compared to that of the control. In addition, conidia that is closely related to FC biosynthesis were significantly increased after ultrasound stimulation, with 3 folds of that from the control.

Enhanced production of Fumigaclavine C in liquid culture of Aspergillus fumigatus under a two-stage process.

Fumigaclavine C (FC) produced by Aspergillus fumigatus is a conidiation associated ergot alkaloid with strong anti-inflammatory activity. However, its wide application has been severely limited by low FC production from submerged culture. In this work, a novel two-stage culture process by combining shake culture with static culture was proposed to enhance the production of FC. After the process optimization, the FC production reached 62.7 mg/L, which was significantly higher than ever report. For scaling up this new culture process, the gas-liquid interfacial area per unit volume (Agas-liq) was identified as the key factor. The results showed that in a combined stirred-static bioreactor system, a maximum FC production (58.97 mg/L) was obtained at an Agas-liq value of 1.30 cm(2)/mL. These results demonstrated that two-stage culture is an efficient strategy to enhance FC production and the information obtained will be useful to production of this powerful bioactive compound on a large scale.