Transformations of Steroids by Beauveria Bassiana
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Transformations of Steroids by Beauveria bassiana Ewa Huszcza*, Jadwiga Dmochowska-Gładysz, and Agnieszka Bartman´ ska Department of Chemistry, Agricultural University, Norwida 25, 50-375 Wrocław, Poland. Fax: 0048-071-3283576. E-mail: [email protected] * Author for correspondence and reprint requests Z. Naturforsch. 60c, 103Ð108 (2005); received July 26/September 6, 2004 The course of transformations of testosterone and its derivatives, including compounds with an additional C1,C2 double bond and/or a 17α-methyl group, a 17-acetyl group or without a 19-methyl group, by a Beauveria bassiana culture was investigated. The fungi pro- moted hydroxylation of these compounds at position 11α, oxidation of the 17-hydroxyl group, reduction of the C1,C2 or C4,C5 double bonds and degradation of the progesterone side-chain, leading to testosterone. The structure of 4-ene-3-oxo-steroids had no influence on regio- and stereochemistry of hydroxylation. In a similar manner, dehydroepiandrosterone was hydroxylated by Beauveria bassiana at position 11α, however, a small amount of 7α- hydroxylation product was also formed. Key words: Beauveria bassiana, Biotransformation, Steroids Introduction 6 and 11α (Griffiths et al., 1993; Cˇ apek and Fas- satiova, 1977; Cˇ apek et al., 1966). Hydroxylation Beauveria, belonging to the Moniliaceae family at positions 6α,11α,11 and 15α was observed in of fungi imperfecti, is a naturally occurring soil the B-norsteroid 17α,21-dihydroxy-B-nor-pregn-4- fungus (Bidochka et al., 1998). It is a recognized en-3,20-dione (Sanada et al., 1977). Also the abil- pathogen of more than 100 insect species (Hajek ity of B. bassiana to reduce the 17-ketone to a 17- and St. Leger, 1994), which has found an applica- alcohol (Bayunova et al., 1989), and to degrade the tion in agricultural biocontrol programs (Bing and progesterone side-chain leading to testosterone Lewis, 1991, 1992; Krueger and Roberts, 1997; Mu- (Schubert et al., 1962) was reported. lock and Chandler, 2000). Therefore, it was of interest to us performing The fungus Beauveria bassiana ATCC 7159 comparative studies on various 4-ene-3-oxo-ste- (also known as B. sulfurescens or Sporotrichum roids. We wanted to check whether the additional sulfurescens) is one of the most frequently used C17 methyl group, the lack of the C19 methyl biocatalysts capable of performing reactions of a group, and the additional C1,C2 double bond do different type, e.g. hydroxylation of saturated and not alter the localisation of the hydroxylation pro- aromatic carbon atoms, keto-alcohol redox reac- cess. tion, alkene redox reaction, sulfide oxidation, Because the knowledge of biotransformations of Baeyer-Villiger oxidation, glucosidation, epoxide 5-ene-steroids is much less documented compared and ester hydrolysis and heteroatom dealkylation. to 4-ene-3-oxo-steroids, we have chosen dehy- These results have been summarized in the review droepiandrosterone (DHEA) as an additional article of Grogan and Holland (2000). The most substrate for the tests with Beauveria bassiana. significant is the use of B. bassiana for selective There are no previous reports on 19-nortestoster- hydroxylation of a wide range of organic com- one and dehydroepiandrosterone transformation pounds. in a Beauveria bassiana culture. In contrast to many other fungi currently used for biocatalysis, Beauveria has not been exten- sively used for transformations of steroids. Previ- Materials and Methods ous research showed that B. bassiana promotes hy- Microorganism droxylation of 4-ene-3-oxo-steroids mainly at position 11α (Griffiths et al., 1993; Bayunova et Beauveria bassiana AM446 was obtained from al., 1989; Cˇ apek and Fassatiova, 1977; Cˇ apek et al., the Institute of Biology and Botany of the Medical 1966; Schubert et al., 1962) and, rarely, at positions University of Wrocław. It was isolated from the 0939Ð5075/2005/0100Ð0103 $ 06.00 ” 2005 Verlag der Zeitschrift für Naturforschung, Tübingen · http://www.znaturforsch.com · D 104 E. Huszcza et al. · Steroid Transformations by Beauveria bassiana insect Pyrrhocoris apterus (Pyrrhocoridae) (ima- CDCl3, CD measurements, which were done on a go). JASCO-715 spectropolarimeter in chloroform, and optical rotation measurements, which were Conditions of cultivation and transformation performed on an AUTOPOL IV polarimeter in ∞ The fungi were incubated in 3% glucose and 1% acetone at 25 C. peptone, pH 5.9, and shaken at 27 ∞C in 2 l Erlen- meyer flasks with 300 ml of medium. After 3 d of Results and Discussion growth, 120 mg of a substrate, dissolved in 5 ml In order to examine different structural factors of acetone or ethanol, were added, and the flasks of a steroid on the biotransformation course, in- returned to the shaker. The products were ex- cluding the presence of the C1,C2 double bond tracted with chloroform after 3Ð10 d of trans- and/or the additional 17α-methyl group and the formation (until the substrate was metabolized). absence of either C19-methyl or C17-acetyl groups, the following substrates have been chosen Product analysis for transformations by Beauveria bassiana AM446: The composition of crude biotransformation testosterone (1), 17α-methyltestosterone (2), 19- mixtures was analysed by TLC and GC. TLC was nortestosterone (3), 1-dehydrotestosterone (4), 1- carried out using silica-gel 60 plates (Merck) with dehydro-17α-methyltestosterone (5) and proges- hexane/acetone (2:1 or 1:1 v/v) as eluent. Steroids terone (6). As there is much less information were detected by spraying the plates with H2SO4/ about hydroxylation of 5-androstenes compared to EtOH (1:1 v/v) followed by heating. Analytical 4-ene-3-oxo-steroids, we also decided to explore GC analysis was performed on a Hewlett Packard the bioconversion of dehydroepiandrosterone (7). 5890A Series II GC instrument, using a HP-5 cap- The fungus Beauveria bassiana was incubated illary column (cross-linked 5% Ph-Me-Silicone, with the substrates until they were metabolised 30 m ¥ 0.53 mm ¥ 0.88 µm film thickness; temper- (3Ð10 d). The results of the biotransformations ature program: 240 ∞C Ð 1 min, gradient 5 ∞C/min are presented by Fig. 1. The yield of products was to 300 ∞C Ð 5 min). Biotransformation products determined by GC analysis of the chloroform ex- were separated by column chromatography using tract (Table I). silica gel 0.05Ð0.2 mesh (Merck) with a hexane/ The structures of biotransformation products acetone mixture (2:1 v/v) as eluent. Structures of were assigned mainly based on 1H NMR spectra. biotransformation products were determined on Both location and configuration of the newly in- the basis of 1H NMR spectra, which were recorded troduced hydroxyl group were determined by ana- on a DRX 300 Bruker 300 MHz spectrometer in lysing differences between NMR spectra of the Table I. Biotransformation of steroids by Beauveria bassiana. Substrate Products Yielda (%) Testosterone (1)11α-hydroxytestosterone (8) 55.4 5α-androstan-11α,17-diol-3-one (9) 14.8 11α-hydroxyandrost-4-ene-3,17-dione (10) 10.5 5α-androstan-11α-ol-3,17-dione (11) 8.4 17α-Methyltestosterone (2)11α-hydroxy-17α-methyltestosterone (12) 95.3 19-Nortestosterone (3)11α-hydroxy-19-nortestoterone (13) 40.5 1-Dehydrotestosterone (4)11α-hydroxy-1-dehydrotestosterone (14) 56.4 11α-hydroxyandrost-1,4-diene-3,17-dione (15) 13.2 11α-hydroxytestosterone (8) 11.4 11α-hydroxyandrost-4-ene-3,17-dione (10) 9.3 1-Dehydro-17α-methyltestosterone (5)11α-hydroxy-1-dehydro-17α-methyltestosterone (16) 86.7 Progesterone (6)11α-hydroxytestosterone (8) 94.1 Dehydroepiandrosterone (7) 5-androsten-3,11α,17-triol (17) 59.6 7α-hydroxydehydroepiandrosterone (18) 13.1 androstenediol (19) 8.3 a Yield determined by GC. E. Huszcza et al. · Steroid Transformations by Beauveria bassiana 105 OH OH OH O O HO HO HO HO + + + O O O O O 1 10 11 8 9 OH OH HO O O 2 12 OH OH HO O O 3 13 OH OH O OH O HO HO HO HO + + + O O O O O 4 14 15 8 10 OH OH HO O O 5 16 O OH HO O O 6 8 O OH O OH HO + + HO HO HO OH HO 7 17 18 19 Fig. 1. Metabolism of testosterone (1), 17α-methyltestosterone (2), 19-nortestosterone (3), 1-dehydrotestosterone (4), 1-dehydro-17α-methyltestosterone (5), progesterone (6) and dehydroepiandrosterone (7)byBeauveria bassiana. starting material and products (Table II, III), sup- group, which was proved by a large downfield shift ported by literature data (Jones, 1973; Kirk et al., of the 19-H3 signal (but not 18-H3) and by the 1990). broad multiplet profile for the 11-H signal in the All the products obtained from 4-ene-3-oxo-ste- region of δ 3.86 ppm to 4.11 ppm as was reported roids transformations contained a 11α-hydroxyl by Jones (1973) and Kirk et al. (1990). The spectral 106 E. Huszcza et al. · Steroid Transformations by Beauveria bassiana Table II. 1H NMR data for B. bassiana 4-ene-3-oxo-steroids transformation products and some substratesa. α α Compound 4-H 17 -H 17 -CH3 18-H 19-H 11 -H Other significant signals 8 5.72 3.69 t, J = 8.3 Hz Ð 0.82 1.32 4.03 m Ð 9 Ð 3.69 t, J = 8.5 Hz Ð 0.76 1.13 3.98 m Ð 10 5.73 ÐÐ0.93 1.32 4.05 m Ð 11 ÐÐ Ð0.89 1.15 4.02 m Ð 2 5.71 Ð 1.20 0.90 1.19 ÐÐ 12 5.72 Ð 1.23 0.92 1.32 4.05 m Ð 13 5.80 3.64 t, J = 8.5 Hz Ð 0.78 ÐÐ Ð 13 5.81 3.68 t, J = 8.3 Hz Ð 0.80 Ð 3.86 m Ð 4 6.04 3.61 t, J = 8.4 Hz Ð 0.79 1.21 Ð 7.03 d, J = 10.2 Hz (1-H) 6.19 d, J = 10.1 Hz (2H) 14 6.06 3.63 t, J = 8.4 Hz Ð 0.81 1.30 4.03 m 7.79 d, J = 10.3 Hz (1-H) 6.13 dd, J = 10.2 Hz, 2 Hz (2-H) 15 6.10 ÐÐ0.93 1.32 4.11 m 7.74 d, J = 10.3 Hz (1-H) 6.14 dd, J = 10.5 Hz, 2 Hz (2-H) 5 6.05 Ð 1.18 0.92 1.24 Ð 7.04 d, J = 10.2 Hz (1-H) 6.21 dd, J = 10.2 Hz, 2 Hz (2-H) 16 6.08 Ð 1.20 0.93 1.32 4.09 m 7.79 d, J = 10.3 Hz (1-H) 6.13 dd, J = 10.2 Hz, 2 Hz (2-H) a Chemical shifts in ppm relative to Me4Si; solvent, CDCl3; J, coupling constant.