Production of lovastatin by Pleurotus ostreatus

Abstract

Lovastatin is one of the earlier statin drugs, which is effective for the treatment of hypercholesterolemia, as an inhibitor of the HMG-CoA reductase. The present work was undertaken to determinate lovastatin production by Pleurotus ostreatus in fruiting bodies and its production on different fermentation media. The favorable medium was found to be Dox-rice. Determination of the optimum conditions for lovastatin production were studied. Results showed that the optimum condition for incubation was 10 days with aeration speed at 180 rpm, at 28ºC when pH medium was 6.

Egyptian Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 25 (1) 2007: pp. 102-110