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Consistent production of kojic acid from Aspergillus sojae SSC-3 isolated from rice husk

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Abstract

A consistent kojic acid producing fungal strain has been isolated from rice husk using glucose-peptone medium. The isolate was identified as Aspergillus sojae SSC-3 on 18S rDNA analysis. A. sojae was capable of producing substantially good amount of kojic acid, however the production was varying from batch to batch. In order to obtain consistent, repeated and high levels of kojic acid, monospore isolation procedures was adopted. The highest production of kojic acid obtained was 12 ± 2 g/L in 120 h with sucrose (10%) and yeast extract (0.5%) as carbon and nitrogen source respectively. The process was scale up to 10 L fermenter size which repeatedly resulted in the production of 18 ± 2 g/L of kojic acid in 96 h. Kojic acid was recovered (> 82%) from the fermentation broth with > 99% purity. Best to our knowledge this is the first report were kojic acid production is reported from Aspergillus sojae strain.

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Acknowledgements

Authors thanks Director, CSIR-IIIM for his interest in this work and for providing the facilities to carry out the work. The authors SC and SS are thankful to SERB-DST-India EMR/2016/002786 for funding. IIIM Publication No IIIM/2295/2019.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Fermentation Technology Division, CSIR- Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Canal Road, Jammu, 180001, India

    Shifali Chib & Saurabh Saran

  2. PK-PD, Toxicology and Formulation Division, CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Canal Road, Jammu, 180001, India

    Ashish Dogra & Utpal Nandi

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  1. Shifali Chib
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Correspondence to Saurabh Saran.

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Chib, S., Dogra, A., Nandi, U. et al. Consistent production of kojic acid from Aspergillus sojae SSC-3 isolated from rice husk. Mol Biol Rep 46, 5995–6002 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11033-019-05035-8

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