Biotransformation of a herb plant metabolite by a cell disruptant of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii

Abstract

Atractylenolide III is an organic product of the herb plant Atractylodes ovata that is used as an anti-inflammatory. This compound has very limited solubility in water, but we succeeded in transforming it using a Chlamydomonas cell disruptant containing 9.1% dimethyl sulfoxide. Two types of metabolites were confirmed after 3 h of incubation by gas chromatography, besides the non-modified substrate. Nuclear magnetic resonance and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analyses indicated that one of the metabolites had two hydroxyl groups whereas atractylenolide III had one hydroxyl group, but no metabolite was obtained when atractylenolide III was added directly to the Chlamydomonas culture medium for 10d.