Studies on Microbial Production of Lipoxygenase Inhibitor

The thesis reports isolation of several fungal cultures from forest soil and screening of
the metabolites for their ability to produce inhibitors against lipoxygenase. Of about 74
isolates, one isolate CFTRI-A-24 found to produce consistently high yields of potent
inhibitor, was characterized as Penicillium frequentans. The LOX inhibitor was purified
using chromatographic techniques and was identified as “Sclerotiorin”. The inhibition
kinetics, mode and mechanism of LOX inhibition, its comparative evaluation to standard
compounds, in vitro and in vivo (animal) models evaluation as antioxidant additive and
other various biological properties of the inhibitors such as antioxidant, antimicrobial,
aldose reductase inhibition, platelet aggregation inhibition, antimutagenic and anticancer
property are reported. A medium was designed with optimum physical and nutritional
parameters for the efficient production of sclerotiorin with better yields in a lab scale
process. Effective recovery of the inhibitor in an economical method was also designed.
An effort was made to evaluate sclerotiorin for the possible application as an antioxidant
additive in commercial oil sample.