జర్నల్ ఆఫ్ మైక్రోబియల్ & బయోకెమికల్ టెక్నాలజీ

నైరూప్య

Screening of Selected Soil and Endophytic Fungi for Lovostatin Biosynthetic Genes lovE and lovF

Bhargavi SD, Praveen VK and Savitha J

Lovastatin is a competitive inhibitor of the enzyme hydroxyl methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase (HMGR) in cholesterol biosynthetic pathway and hence used in the treatment of hyperlipidemia. Our results revealed that Aspergillus terreus of soil origin produce copious amount of lovastatin than its counterpart that are endophytic in origin. Bioinformatics analysis of whole genome sequence of A. terreus (AH007774.1), a soil isolate revealed the presence of lovastatin gene cluster (AF141924.1 and AF141925.1), whereas, endophytic fungi including a species of A. terreus showed no homology with the lovastatin gene cluster. Molecular studies aimed at generating physical evidence were performed to analyze the expression of lovastatin biosynthetic genes lovE (regulatory gene) and lovF (transcriptional regulatory factor) in soil and endophytic fungi. The target PCR amplification of lovE (1512bp) and lovF (749bp) were successful in a strain of soil isolate, Aspergillus terreus (KM017693), whereas the same was not achieved in endophytic fungi. This is the first report on comparative analysis of complementary DNA sequence of a soil isolate and endophytic fungi, which further substantiate the absence of lovastatin production by endophytic fungi. The significance for the lack of lovastatin by endophytic fungi is also discussed.