Effect of Spore Age and Inducers on Lovastatin Production in Aspergillus terreus

One of the ways to reduce cholesterol is to use statins that prevent cholesterol synthesis. The statins are similar to mevalonate and act as a competitive inhibitor of HMG-CoA reductase enzyme. Lovastatin is the eminent derivate of the statins group, which is produced by many microorganisms. At commercial scale lovastatin is produced in submerged culture by Aspergillus terreus. The industrial production of this metabolite is carried out by Aspergillus turosus in liquid culture. The main aim of this research was to investigate the effect of spore age on lovastatin production at the inoculation stage; also, the impact of adding olive oil and tetracycline as inducers for lovastatin production were examined. In the present experimental research, different suspensions from varying ages of spore were prepared and added to the medium of Aspergillus terreus ATCC 20542; lovastatin concentration also was measured by High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). Findings: The utmost lovastatin was observed in inoculum with 85 days spore age and equal to 60 mg/l, which was approximately twice higher compared to when inoculated with 10 days spore age. The best concentration of spore inoculation was 0.5×107 spores/ml. Lovastatin production significantly increased when tetracycline and olive oil were used as inducers. As the inoculated spore age increases, lovastatin and biomass production is increased. The lovastatin production is increases by more than 1.5 times while adding tetracycline and olive oil compared to date syrup alone.