Penicillium brevicompactum, mycophenolic acid

Patino B, Medina A, Domenech M, Gonzalez-Jaen MT, Jimenez M and Vazquez C. 2007. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) identification of Penicillium brevicompactum, a grape contaminant and mycophenolic acid producer. Food Addit Contam 24(2) 165-172. 

Mycophenolic acid (Figure 3.36) is produced by fermentation cultures of the fungus Penicillium brevicompactum. It has been known for many years to have antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, and antitumour properties. It has recently been introduced into medicine as an immunosuppressant drug, to reduce the incidence of rejection of transplanted organs, particularly kidney and heart transplants. It is formulated as the /V-morpholinoethyl ester mycophenolate mofetil (Figure 3.37), which is metabolized after ingestion to mycophenolic... 

Dr. Gene Ford identified a third fungus, EMIBD, as a Penicillium sp., most likely P. brevicompactum. When grown in mycological broth (21 days, unshaken) and harvested as described above, the methylene chloride extract of the filtrate was active against Candida albicans. When this extract was chromatographed on Sephadex LH-20 size exclusion gel (chloroform/methanol, 1 1) thirteen fractions eluted. All of the antifungal activity resided in fractions 6 and 7. Crystals in fraction 6 were removed by filtration. The crystalline compound was spectroscopically identical to mycophenolic acid (23) which was first identified over 50 years ago as the... 

Continuing biosynthetic studies on mycophenolic acid (00) in Penicillium brevicompactum have established that of the two pathways known to operate for side-chain shortening of the farnesyl phthalide precursor (cf, 2,95), direct... 

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