Efficient and cost-reduced glucoamylase fed-batch production with alternative carbon sources

Glucoamylase is an important industrial enzyme. Glucoamylase production by industrial Aspergillus niger strain featured with two major problems: (i) empirical substrate feeding methods deteriorating the fermentation performance; and (ii) the high raw materials cost limiting the economics of the glucoamylase product with delegated specification. In this study, we first proposed a novel three-stage varied-rate substrate feeding strategy for efficient glucoamylase production in a 5 L bioreactor using the standard feeding medium, by comparing the changing patterns of the important physiological parameters such as DO, OUR, RQ, etc., when using different substrate feeding strategies. With this strategy, the glucoamylase activity and productivity reached higher levels of 11,000 U/ml and 84.6 U/ml/h, respectively. The performance enhancement in this case was beneficial from the following results: DO and OUR could be controlled at the higher levels (30%, 43.83 mmol/l/h), while RQ was maintained at a stable/lower level of 0.60 simultaneously throughout the fed-batch phase. Based on this three-stage varied-rate substrate feeding strategy, we further evaluated the economics of using alternative carbon sources, attempting to reduce the raw materials cost. The results revealed that cornstarch hydrolysate could be considered as the best carbon source to replace the standard and expensive feeding medium. In this case, the production cost of the glucoamylase with delegated specification (5,000 U/ml) could be saved by more than 61% while the product quality be ensured simultaneously. The proposed strategy showed application potential in improving the economics of industrial glucoamylase production.