Abstract
Among exopolysaccharides, gellan gum is used widely as a gelling agent and food additive, and its commercial market is rapidly increasing. To optimize the fermentation production of gellan gum in Sphingomonas paucimobilis ZJU3108, carbon/nitrogen (C/N) ratio, dissolved oxygen (DO) and impeller type were studied. The C/N ratio, rather than the absolute concentration of carbon or nitrogen source, was found to be the major factor affecting cell growth. A C/N ratio above 20.7 had no significant effect on gellan gum production. Although the final yield of gellan gum increased with C/N ratio increase, the glucose to gellan gum conversion rate decreased. This was due to the high viscosity, which caused oxygen limitation from 16 h to 40 h in the inhomogeneous broth. Due to low stationary phase oxygen demand, the effect of DO on biomass and gellan gum production was reduced. A simple DO control strategy was developed to maintain 30% DO for the first 32 h cultivation, followed by anaerobic conditions for the remaining 8 h. Comparison of different impellers suggested that an anchor impeller with impeller diameter of 11.0 cm (D* = 11.0 cm) was suitable for high yields of high molecular weight gellan gum. These studies simplify production of gellan gum by fermentation and improve its yield.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Amanullah A, Serrano Carreon L, Castro B, Galindo E, Nienow AW (1998) The influence of impeller type in pilot scale Xanthan fermentations. Biotechnol Bioeng 57:95–108
Badino AC Jr, Facciotti MCR, Schmidell W (2000) Improving kLa determination in fungal fermentation, taking into account electrode response time. J Chem Technol Biotechnol 75:469–474
Bandyopadhyay B, Humphrey AE, Taguchi H (1967) Dynamic measurement of the volumetric oxygen transfer coefficient in fermentation system. Biotechnol Bioeng 9:533–544
Banik RM, Santhiagu A (2006) Improvement in production and quality of gellan gum by Sphingomonas paucimobilis under high dissolved oxygen tension levels. Biotechnol Lett 28:1347–1350
Banik RM, Santhiagu A, Upadhyay SN (2007) Optimization of nutrients for gellan gum production by Sphingomonas paucimobilis ATCC 31461 in molasses based medium using response surface methodology. Bioresour Technol 98:792–797
Dreveton E, Monot F, Ballerini D, Lecourtier J, Choplin L (1996) Influence of fermentation hydrodynamics on gellan gum physico-chemical characteristics. J Ferment Bioeng 82:272–276
Duan XJ, Niu HX, Tan WS, Zhang X (2009) Mechanism analysis of effect of oxygen on molecular weight of hyaluronic acid produced by Streptococcus zooepidemicus. J Microb Biotechnol 19:299–306
Fialho AM, Moreira LM, Granja AT, Popescu AO, Hoffmann K, Sa-Correia I (2008) Occurrence, production, and applications of gellan: current state and perspectives. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 79:889–900
Giavasis I, Harvey LM, McNeil B (2000) Gellan gum. Crit Rev Biotechnol 20:177–211
Giavasis I, Harvey LM, McNeil B (2006) The effect of agitation and aeration on the synthesis and molecular weight of gellan in batch cultures of Sphingomonas paucimobilis. Enzyme Microb Technol 38:101–108
Jay AJ, Colquhoun IJ, Ridout MJ, Brownsey GJ, Morris VJ, Fialho AM, Leitão JH, Sá-Correia I (1998) Analysis of structure and function of gellans with different substitution patterns. Carbohydr Polym 35:179–188
Kanda M, Yamamoto E, Hayashi A, Yabutani T, Yamashita M, Honda H (2010) Scale-up fermentation of echinocandin type antibiotic FR901379. J Biosci Bioeng 109:138–144
Kim MK, Lee IY, Ko JH, Rhee YH, Park YH (1999) Higher intracellular levels of uridine monophosphate under nitrogen-limited conditions enhance the metabolic flux of curdlan synthesis in Agrobacterium species. Biotechnol Bioeng 62:317–323
Kouda T, Yano H, Yoshinaga F (1997) Effect of agitator configuration on bacterial cellulose productivity in aerated and agitated culture. J Ferment Bioeng 83:371–376
Lobas D, Schumpe S, Deckwer WD (1992) The production of gellan exopolysaccharide with Sphingomonas paucimobilis E2 (DSM 6314). Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 37:411–415
Manna B, Gambhir A, Ghosh P (1996) Production and rheological characteristics of the microbial polysaccharide gellan. Lett Appl Microbiol 23:141–145
Martins LO, Sa-Correia I (1994) Temperature profiles of gellan gum synthesis and activities of biosynthetic enzymes. Biotechnol Appl Biochem 20:385–395
Nampoothiri KM, Singhania RR, Sabarinath C, Pandey A (2003) Fermentative production of gellan using Sphingomonas paucimobilis. Process Biochem 38:1513–1519
Pace GW, Righelato RC (1981) Production of extracellular microbial polysaccharides. Adv Biochem Eng 15:41–70
Rinaudo M, Milas M (2000) Gellan gum, a bacterial gelling polymer. In: Doxastakis G, Kiosseoglou V (eds) Novel macromolecules in food systems. Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp 239–263
Rocha Valadez JA, Albiter V, Caro MA, Serrano Carreon L, Galindo E (2007) A fermentation system designed to independently evaluate mixing and/or oxygen tension effects in microbial processes: development, application and performance. Bioprocess Biosyst Eng 30:115–122
Roseiro JC, Esgalhado ME, Collaco A, Emery AN (1992) Medium development for xanthan production. Process Biochem 27:167–175
Yang ST, Lo YM, Min DB (1996) Xanthan gum fermentation by Xanthomonas campestris immobilized in a novel centrifugal fibrous-bed bioreactor. Biotechnol Prog 12:630–637
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding authors
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Huang, J., Jiang, S., Xu, X. et al. Effects of carbon/nitrogen ratio, dissolved oxygen and impeller type on gellan gum production in Sphingomonas paucimobilis . Ann Microbiol 62, 299–305 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13213-011-0261-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13213-011-0261-2