Inulinase Production Capability of a Promising Medicinal Plant: Inula viscosa

Abstract

The present study was designed to examine the inulinase production capability of Rhodotorula glutinis SO-28 by using Inula viscosa, a promising medicinal plant, as sole carbon source in submerged fermentation. Inula viscosa, a perennial member of Asteraceae family, is a popular and widespread medicinal plant in the Mediterranean region. It is termed as “yapışkan andız otu” in Turkey and has been widely used in folk medicine since the ancient times. Taguchi design of experiment (DOE) technique was utilized for the inulinase production optimization process. An orthogonal array layout of L16 was utilized with four influential factors as following: Inula viscosa amount, agitation speed, incubation temperature, and incubation time at four levels. The obtained results showed that optimized inulinase production enhanced enzyme activity as 99.63 U/ml which was 5-fold higher than the unoptimized condition. In brief, Inula viscosa can be used effectively for inulinase production and use of statistical optimization techniques like Taguchi DOE significantly increases the enzyme yield.