African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 6 (18), pp. 2095-2099, 19 September 2007   

ISSN 1684–5315 © 2007 Academic Journals        

Full Length Research Paper

Paecilomyces fumosoroseus blastospore production using liquid culture in a bioreactor

Mónica Guadalupe Lozano-Contreras*, Myriam Elías-Santos, Catalina Rivas-Morales, Hugo Alberto Luna-Olvera, Luis Jesús Galán-Wong and María Guadalupe Maldonado-Blanco

Instituto de Biotecnología, Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas. Universidad Autónoma De Nuevo León (UANL), Av. Pedro de Alba y Manuel L. Barragán, Ciudad Universitaria, CP. 66450, A.P. 414 y 2790 San Nicolás de los Garza, Nuevo León, México.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: qbpmonik@terra.com.mx. Tel/Fax: + 52-81-83-294110 ext 6437.

Accepted 7 August, 2007

There are many advantages to using liquid cultures for the production of blastospores. These include mainly the processes of scale up which are relatively easy, as well as the control of parameters such as temperature, aeration and pH. In this work, we evaluated the production of Paecilomyces fumosoroseus blastospores using a low-cost liquid culture medium in a fermenter in comparison to a medium commonly used for this purpose, with regard to yield and viability of blastospores. The two media contained the same concentration of glucose but differed in N source (M1 containing casamino acids and M2 provided with collagen peptone and yeast extract). Starting with an inoculum of 1x10⁶ blastospores/ml, M2 medium produced 2x10¹⁰ blastospores/ml after incubation for 72 h at 520 rev/min agitation and 1 v/v/m (volume air/volume liquid.min) aeration, while only 2.4 x 10⁸/ml were produced with M1. In addition, the microorganisms in medium M1 grew more slowly during log phase and reached an earlier plateau at 36 h fermentation. The medium containing collagen peptone and yeast extract is an excellent alternative for the production of P. fumosoroseus blastospores, providing lower cost, higher yield and shorter propagation time, but formulation does need to be improved.

Key words: Collagen peptone, low cost, short times of propagation, fed-batch.