High production of xanthan gum by a glycerol-tolerant strain Xanthomonas campestris WXLB-006

ABSTRACT

The superior properties of xanthan gum make it an industrial aginomoto used in many industries, especially in oil recovery. In the present work, xanthan production from glycerol by a mutant strain Xanthomonas campestris WXLB-006 reached as high as 17.8 g/L in flask culture. With the adoption of pH control, varied aeration and agitation, and varied glycerol feeding strategy, xanthan production reached 33.9 g/L in a 7-L fermenter and fermentation time decreased to 60 hr. Instead of difficultly and costly purifying glycerol, this research provides a very good case for glycerol utilization. At the same time, this is the first report on a high glycerol-tolerant strain for microbial polysaccharide production and 33.9 g/L is the highest production of xanthan gum produced from glycerol so far.

KEYWORDS:

• Adaptive evolution
• fermentation strategy
• glycerol
• glycerol-tolerant strain
• high production
• xanthan gum

Acknowledgments

This work is supported by the 111 Project (No. 111-2-06) and the National High-tech R&D Program of China (2012AA021505, 2012AA021201), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31171640, 31301408), National Key Technologies R&D Program of China (2011BAD23B04), The Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (JUSRP51632A, JUSRP51504) the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province No. BK20151122, and Industry-Education-Research Cooperation Project of Jiangsu Province (BY2016022-15).