Selection of initial culture medium in fed-batch bioreactor culture of Rhodiola sachalinensis cells

In fed-batch culture, numerous factors, such as initial culture conditions and feeding strategies, affect the culture efficiency. Among the factors, the effect of initial culture medium is rarely investigated. In this work, Rhodiola sachalinensis cells were cultured in the fed-batch bioreactor system and the effects of volume, medium strength, and sucrose concentration of initial culture medium on biomass and accumulation of salidroside, polysaccharides, flavonoids, and phenolics were investigated. The results showed that an initial medium volume of 3 L significantly (p < 0.05) increased biomass and the four bioactive compound contents. The maximum biomass and the highest contents of different bioactive compounds were determined at various MS medium strengths. Therefore, analytic hierarchy process (AHP) - technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) was implemented and half-strength MS medium was selected. Furthermore, the effect of sucrose concentration was examined and 30 g/L sucrose in the initial medium was optimal, at which concentration, 39.45 mg/g DW of salidroside, 531.25 mg/g DW of total polysaccharides, 3.89 mg/g DW of total flavonoids, and 10.84 mg/g DW of total phenolics were produced. The findings of the present study provided a reference for further establishing the fed-batch culture system of R. sachalinensis cells.