**Author details**

widely marketed drug category known as steroids. Therefore, the industrial production of

The industrial production of androstenedione is challenging and economically important.

**a.** Bioprospecting for finding organisms with enhanced production of androstenedione

Although there are a number of strains reported to have the biotransformation ability, yet the efficacy of these strains does not match the industrial applicability. Hence the need of the hour is to look for organisms having the capacity of transforming phytosterols to AD with high efficiency. Strategies can be applied for screening microorganisms having the ability to produce natural compounds like biosurfactants which increase the availability of complex substrates. Such organisms might play a role in substrate solubility of phytosterol thus minimizing the

Process optimization involves various parameters such as substrate inhibition, product inhibition, activities of biocatalysts, etc. To date, to the best of our knowledge, these parameters have not been addressed in the available literature. These parameters may result in the low yield of AD. Once addressed, these parameters might open a vast area of research. The mechanism of phytosterol biotransformation by various organisms has been reported but the enlisted parameters have not been paid attention to. All the aspects of the process need to be considered so as to develop an industrially applicable process for biotransformation of phytosterols.

Authors are thankful to Dr. Vinaykumar Rale and Dr. Anuradha Vaidya for valuable suggestions and discussions. Authors acknowledge Symbiosis International (Deemed University) for financial support. Financial support from the Symbiosis Centre for Research and Innovation (SCRI), Symbiosis International University (SIU), India in the form of Junior Research

Fellowship is gratefully acknowledged by one of the authors, Rutuja Rokade.

**c.** Developing industrially applicable techniques to enhance the yield of AD.

this compound will greatly benefit the biomedical sector.

Therefore upcoming research in this field will be focused on:

**b.** Process optimization for economically viable production

**6. Future perspectives**

122 Secondary Metabolites - Sources and Applications

need of additional compounds.

**Acknowledgements**

**Conflict of interest**

None declared.

Rutuja Rokade, Selvan Ravindran\*, Pooja Singh and Jitendra K. Suthar

\*Address all correspondence to: selvan\_ravindran@yahoo.com

Symbiosis School of Biological Sciences, Symbiosis International (Deemed University), Pune, India
