Single Production of Kojic Acid by and the Revision of Flufuran.

Timor Island is very hot and dry due to the high intensity of sunlight experienced throughout the year. The endophytic fungi had been isolated from medicinal plants such as , and . The endophytic fungi from each plant was cultivated on solid rice media and then analyzed for its capability for producing kojic acid. The production of kojic acid was analyzed by HPLC; the highest amount of kojic acid was observed from the endophytic fungi isolated from the stem of followed by from and . Simple VLC fractionation of the extract of from led to the isolation of around 11.1 g of pure kojic acid. The structure of kojic acid () was confirmed by NMR and MS spectroscopic data. A comparison of the NMR data with the literature supported the revision of the natural product flufuran to kojic acid. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of a strain of endophytic fungi producing only kojic acid without any other toxic metabolites such as alfatoxins. Therefore, this strain can be applied as a potential producer of kojic acid for industrial use.