Fungal transformation of pimaradienoic acid and its schistosomicidal activity against Schistosoma mansoni

Abstract

In the present work, the microbial transformation of pimaradienoic acid (PA, 1) (Figure 1) was performed using submerged shaken liquid culture of Aspergillus ochraceus (1.8×106 spores/mL). The microorganism was grown by a two-stage fermentation procedure [1]. PA was added as a dimethylsulfoxide solution (0.1g/L) and incubated for 3 days. The culture was filtered and the aqueous layer was extracted with ethyl acetate to furnish the extract codified as AoPA. Chemical and NMR studies of AoPA allowed us to isolate and to identify two PA derivatives (Figure 1: Compounds 2 and 3).