Preparative separation of echinocandin B from Aspergillus nidulans broth using macroporous resin adsorption chromatography

• One step isolation of echinocandin B from broth with macroporous resin.
• Nine kinds of macroporous resins were tested and HP-20 was found best for echinocandin B purification.
• The static equilibrium adsorption data of echinocandin B were fitted to the Langmuir isotherm.
• One-step resin 3.8-fold enrichment of echinocandin B with purity 88.5%.

Echinocandin B (ECB), an echinocandin type of lipopeptide antibiotic produced by Aspergillus nidulans, is a precursor for the synthesis of novel anti-fungal drug – anidulafungin. In this work, a separation strategy involving one-step macroporous resin adsorption chromatography was established for ECB purification from Aspergillus nidulans CCTCC M 2010275 fermentation broth. Among nine macroporous resin adsorbents tested, the non-polar resin HP-20 had the best adsorption and desorption performance. The static equilibrium adsorption data fitted well with the Langmuir equation, and the adsorption kinetic followed the pseudo-second order model. The separation parameters of ECB from broth were optimised by dynamic adsorption/desorption experiments with the column packed with HP-20 resin. Under optimal conditions, the purity increased by 3.8-fold from 23.2% in broth to 88.5% in eluent with 87.1% recovery yield by a one-step treatment. Our study provided a one-step and effective method for large-scale production of ECB, and offered references for separating other echinocandins from broth.