Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, Vol.104, No.5, 2007-2015, 2020
Effects of pH, temperature and salinity on P3HB synthesis culturing the marine Rhodovulum sulfidophilum DSM-1374
Rhodovulum sulfidophilum DSM-1374 is a potential producer of polyester when growing in phototrophic conditions. The present study investigated on a polyester product (P3HB) by culturing Rhodovulum sulfidophilum DSM-1374 in two different photobioreactors (PBR-1 and PBR-2) both with 4-L working volumes. PBR-1 is equipped with an internal rotor having 4 paddles to mix the bacterial culture while PBR-2 has an internal coil-shaped rotor. After selecting PBR-1, which best performed in the preliminary experiment, the effect of different stressing growth conditions as pH (7.0, 8.0, and 9.0), temperature (25, 30, and 35 degrees C), and medium salinity (1.5, 2.5, 3.5, and 4.5%) were tested. When the pH of the culture was set to 8.0, the capability of the bacterium to synthetize the polyester increased significantly reaching a concentration of 412 mg (P3HB)/L; the increase of the pH at 9.0 caused a reduction of the P3HB concentration in the culture. The medium salinity of 4.5% was the best stress-growth condition to reach the highest concentration of polyester in the culture (820 +/- 50 mg (P3HB)/L) with a P3HB mass fraction in the dry biomass of 33 +/- 1.5%. Stresses caused by culture temperature are another potential parameter that could increase the synthesis of P3HB.
Keywords:Photobioreactors;Rhodovulum sulfidophilum DSM-1374;Polyhydroxyalkanoate;Poly(3-hydroxybutyrate);Salinity