Potential pancreatic lipase inhibitory activity of an endophytic Penicillium species

Pancreatic lipase (PL) is considered as one of the safest target for diet-induced anti-obesity drug development. Orlistat is the only PL inhibitor approved for anti-obesity treatment till date. In the process of exploration of new PL inhibitors, we have screened culture filtrates of 70 endophytic fungi of medicinal plants using qualitative as well as quantitative in-vitro PL assays. The qualitative assays indicated potential PL inhibition in only three isolates, namely #57 TBBALM, #33 TBBALM and #1 CSSTOT. Only ethyl acetate extracts of the culture filtrates of these isolates exhibited the PL inhibition. #57 TBBLAM ethyl acetate extract of culture filtrate exhibited potential PL inhibition with an IC50 of 3.69 µg/ml which was comparable to the positive control, i.e. Orlistat exhibiting IC50 value of 2.73 µg/ml. Further molecular phylogenetic tools and morphological studies were used to identify the isolate #57 TBBALM as Penicillium species.