Titer improvement of mycophenolic acid in the novel producer strain Penicillium arizonense and expression analysis of its biosynthetic genes.

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 wild-type. 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.Kew word.Mycophenolic acid, Penicillium arizonense, mutagenesis, gene expression.