Development of a rapid and sensitive HPLC method for the identification and quantification of cavoxin and cavoxone in Phoma cava culture filtrates

Cavoxin is a tetrasubstituted phytotoxic chalcone and cavoxone is the corresponding chroman-4-one, both produced in vitro by Phoma cava, a fungus isolated from chestnut. Cavoxin showed biofungicide potential against fungal species responsible for food moulding. Therefore, cavoxin has potential to be incorporated into biopolymer to generate ‘intelligent food packaging’. To reach this objective, large-scale production of cavoxin by P. cava fermentation needs to be optimized. A rapid and efficient method for cavoxin analysis, as well as of cavoxone, in the fungal culture filtrates and the corresponding organic extracts is the first experimental step. Thus, a HPLC method was developed and applied to quantify cavoxin and cavoxone production in two different fungal culture conditions. The analysis proved that cavoxin production in stirred culture filtrates is significantly higher than in static ones.