Some studies suggest possible cognitive improvements from Huperzine-A (HupA), which a Mayo Clinic website describes as “a dietary supplement derived from the Chinese club moss Huperzia serrata.” Producing HupA, however, proves difficult. According to Amira Gamal Zaki and El-Sayed Ramadan El-Sayed, PhD, both in the plant research department at the Nuclear Research Center of the Egyptian Atomic Energy Authority in Cairo, the “achieved yields of HupA from microbial sources are still far from the industrial applications.” So, these scientists tested solid-state fermentation (SSF) as a means of producing HupA for the first time.
For producing HupA, these scientists applied SSF to the endophytic Alternaria brassica grown in four agro-industrial wastes: rice bran, potato peel, sugarcane bagasse, and wheat bran. Zaki and El-Sayed also tested the impact of the substrate concentration, moisture level, and inoculum concentration. With 15 grams of rice bran, an inoculum concentration of 5 million spores per milliliter, and a moisture level of 60%, the SSF process produced almost 519 micrograms of HupA per gram of rice bran. Adding gamma-radiation mutagenesis further increased HupA production by almost 13-fold.
When asked what it would take to commercialize this process, El-Sayed said, “We need to move from lab-scale production to an industrial scale to validate the results in our study. The use of agro-industrial side streams not only will contribute to lowering the overall cost of processes but also will provide an environmentally-sustainable process by the safe disposal of these wastes.”
