Effect of iron and silver nanoparticles on coenzyme Q₁₀ production by Gluconobacter japonicus FM10

Coenzyme Q₁₀ is an anti-aging agent whose demand is increasing progressively. There are various strategies used for increasing coenzyme Q₁₀ production by microorganisms. In this study, for the first time, we investigated the effect of iron oxide and silver nanoparticles on coenzyme Q₁₀ production by Gluconobacter japonicus FM10.

In the first step, a preliminary experiment was set and carried out to obtain the minimum inhibitory concentrations of the nanoparticles on the strain FM10. Then the sub-MIC concentrations were used to investigate their effect on coenzyme Q₁₀ production in the stationary and exponential phases of the growth, separately.

The results showed that coenzyme Q₁₀ production increased in the presence of the iron oxide and silver nanoparticles. The silver nanoparticles induced 1.9 times higher coenzyme Q₁₀ production. The highest level of coenzyme Q₁₀ was induced when the silver nanoparticles were added to the culture medium at the stationary phase.

This should be noticed that so far nanoparticles have been considered as antibacterial agents, rather than being considered to cause probable beneficial effects on the induction of useful products in the microbial world. In this regard, their potential for increasing coenzyme Q₁₀ production has received no attention. However, our present results showed that the nanoparticles can be used to increase the production efficiency of coenzyme Q₁₀ in Gluconobacter.