High purity, high yield procedure for butyrolactone I production from Aspergillus terreus

Two experimental design methods, Plackett-Burman and Box-Behnken, were used to optimize media for the production of butyrolactone I, a chemical inhibi tor of eukaryotic cyclin-dependent kinases, synthesized by Aspergillus terr eus. The optimized medium produced as much as ten fold more butyrolactone I than the original medium. An isolation procedure is also described which g enerates highly purified butyrolactone I, free from other secondary metabol ites produced by this strain of A. terreus. The results of this study provi de the means to produce highly purified preparations of butyrolactone I.