Abstract
Recently, importance of immunosuppression is increasing as internal organ transplant becomes more prevalent with development of medical technology. Mycophenolic acid (MPA) is a selective inhibitor of guanine synthesis and it therefore has antibacterial, antiviral, antitumor and selective immunosuppressive activities. The objective of this study was to maximize MPA productivity through utilizing the MPA generating strain of Penicillium brevicompactum ATCC 16024, by inducing UV mutation and NTG mutation. The highest MPA obtained was 1.146 g/L, 2.051 g/L, and 1.390 g/L from P. brevicompactum UB-3, UB-9, UC-4 respectively mutants derived from UV treatment. P. brevicompactum NC-3 and NA-9 induced from NTG treatment yielded. 575 g/L, 2.238 g/L of MPA production respectively. Mutants capable of the highest observed production of MPA were P. brevicompactum UB-9 and P. brevicompactum NC-3 obtained using the UV and NTG treatments respectively.