Cost effective production and applications of levan from Acetobacter xylinum NCIM 2526 using synthetic and complex medium

International Conference and Exhibition on Biopolymers & Bioplastics

August 10-12, 2015 San Francisco, USA

Kiran Babu Uppuluri

Scientific Tracks Abstracts: J Material Sci Eng

Abstract :

Levan is a homopolymer of fructose naturally obtained from both plants and microorganisms. Microbial levans are more
advantageous, economical and industrially feasible. Microbial levans have wide range of applications in food, medicine,
pharmaceutical, cosmetic and commercial industrial sectors. With excellent polymeric medicinal properties and ease of production,
microbial levan appear as a valuable and versatile biopolymer of the future. Inspite of its broad spectrum of applications, the industrial
usage of levan is very limited due to the high cost of production processes. The present study demonstrates the economically feasible
microbial production of levan by batch fermentation process both in sucrose rich medium and pretreated sugar cane molasses (SCM)
using Acetobacter xylinum NCIM 2526. Further the present study also focused on the optimization of levan production in synthetic
medium using one factor at a time approach followed by a statistical method, central composite design (CCD) with selected variables.
Neural networks coupled genetic algorithm was applied to optimize the four key fermentation parameters in SCM; medium pH,
inoculum concentration, amount of Ammonium bicarbonate and amount of initial levan for levan yield. The produced Levan was
characterized using various physicochemical techniques such as FTIR, 1H NMR, 13C NMR spectroscopy, TGA and HPLC. The
biomedical potential of the isolated A. xylinum levan for its anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory activities was exploited in vitro. The
yield of levan was increased significantly from 0.54 to 13.25 g/L in sucrose containing medium and from 17.1 g/L to 122.24 g/L in
SCM with the optimized variables.

Biography :

Kiran Babu Uppuluri has completed his PhD from Andhra University in biopharmaceutical technology. He has published more than 20 papers in reputed journals
and serving as an Associate Professor at SASTRA University, Thanjavur. His expertise covers the area of modeling, design and optimization of biopharmaceutical
production. He has expertise in bioprocess development, mechanism of action of pharmaceuticals and formulation of biologicals. He received a young scientist
award from department of science and technology, government of India in 2013. He is currently funded by the DST India on two projects “Serine protease inhibitors
production” and “biohydrogen production”.