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Improvement of cordycepin production by an isolated Paecilomyces hepiali mutant from combinatorial mutation breeding and medium screening

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Abstract

Cordycepin is a major bioactive compound found in Cordyceps sinensis that exhibits a broad spectrum of biological activities. Here a Paecilomyces hepiali OR-1 strain was initially isolated from plateau soil for the bioproduction of cordycepin. Subsequently, strain modification including 60Co γ-ray and ultraviolet irradiation were employed to increase the cordycepin titer, resulted in a high-yield mutant strain P. hepiali ZJB18001 with the cordycepin content of 0.61 mg/gDCW, showing a 2.3-fold to that from the wild strain (0.26 mg/gDCW). Furthermore, medium screening based on Box-Behnken design and the response surface methodology facilitated the enhancement of cordycepin yield to the value of 0.96 mg/gDCW at 25 °C for 5 days in submerged cultivation with an optimized medium composition. The high cordycepin yield, rapid growth rate and stable genetic characteristics of P. hepiali ZJB18001 are beneficial in terms of costs and time for the industrialization of cordycepin production.

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Acknowledgements

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Funding

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32070099 and 32000898), the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province (LQ21B060006), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Provincial Universities of Zhejiang (RF-C2019005).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The National and Local Joint Engineering Research Center for Biomanufacturing of Chiral Chemicals, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, 310014, People’s Republic of China

    Xue Cai, Jie-Yi Jin, Bo Zhang, Zhi-Qiang Liu & Yu-Guo Zheng

  2. Key Laboratory of Bioorganic Synthesis of Zhejiang Province, College of Biotechnology and Bioengineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, 310014, Zhejiang, People’s Republic of China

    Xue Cai, Jie-Yi Jin, Bo Zhang, Zhi-Qiang Liu & Yu-Guo Zheng

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  1. Xue Cai
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Contributions

Xue Cai: Data curation, Writing-original draft and Writing-Review and Editing; Jie-Yi Jin: Investigation and Validation; Bo Zhang: Methodology and Writing-Review and Editing; Zhi-Qiang Liu: Conceptualization, Writing-Review and Editing; Yu-Guo Zheng: Supervision.

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Correspondence to Zhi-Qiang Liu.

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Cai, X., Jin, JY., Zhang, B. et al. Improvement of cordycepin production by an isolated Paecilomyces hepiali mutant from combinatorial mutation breeding and medium screening. Bioprocess Biosyst Eng 44, 2387–2398 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00449-021-02611-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00449-021-02611-w

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