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Updated: Jul 13, 2026

Biolistic Transformation of a Fluorescent Tagged Gene into the Opportunistic Fungal Pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans
Published on: March 19, 2015
[Microbial transformation of 4-ene-3-one steroids by Mucor racemosus]
Wen-zhong Ge1, Nan Li, Li-hong Shan
1College of Life Science and Technology, Heiloangiang August First Agricultural University, Daqing 163319, China. wenzhongg@126.com
Abstract:
A steroid-converting fungus isolated from soil samples, was identified as Mucor racemosus according to its morphological characters. The application of M. racemosus for biotransformation of 4-ene-3-one steroids had been investigated to obtain hydroxylated derivatives of 4-ene-3-one steroids. The substrates were incubated with M. racemosus in rotary shaker (220 rpm) culture for a period of four days at 27 degrees C. All of the fermentation media were exhaustively extracted with ethyl acetate and filtered to separate the both from the mycelium. The transformation products were separated on silica gel column chromatography. Each microbial metabolite was characterized by spectroscopic methods such as IR, MS and NMR. Fermentation of progesterone yielded 14alpha-hydroxypregn-4-en-3, 20-dione and 7alpha, 14alpha-dihydroxypregn-4-en-3, 20-dione. Incubation of androstenedione resulted in three transformation products: 14, 17-dihydroxyandrost-4-en-3-one, 14alpha, 17beta-dihydroxyandrost-4-en-3-one and 6alpha, 17beta-dihydroxyandrost-4-en-3-one. This fungus was found to biotransformation steroids. The results showed that the fermentation of 4-ene-3-one steroids with M. racemosus yielded mainly 14alpha-hydroxy steroids.
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