Quantification of Lovastatin Produced by Monascus purpureus

Abstract

Development of a novel method for the quantification of lovastatin is an interesting problem in the analytical field. In the literature, many reports use spectrophotometric method for the quantification of lovastatin. However, the analysis of fermentation broth containing lovastatin appears to be inaccurate using spectrophotometric method. Hence, the estimation of lovastatin produced by Monascus purpureus and pure lovastatin was attempted by UV-visible spectrophotometer as well as HPLC. It was observed that the analogues and/or intermediates of lovastatin synthesized in the fermentation broth and the products of fermentation caused superimposition effect on the absorption spectrum. Phosphate is a medium constituent for the production of lovastatin by the organism which contributed significantly to the superimposition of absorption spectrum. On the other hand, HPLC analysis consistently gave reliable results for the estimation of lovastatin under all the experimental conditions studied.