Biosynthesis of bacitracin in stirred fermenter by Bacillus licheniformis using defatted oil seed cakes as substrate

Abstract

Bacitracin is being imported in India involving substantial amount of foreign exchange for its incorporation in poultry feed. The raw material for its production is readily available and cheap such as soybean meal, sunflower meal & wheat bran. Thus development of this technology in this country would result in saving a reasonable amount of foreign exchange by utilizing our resources. The present study is concerned with the biosynthesis of antibioticBacitracin by Bacillus licheniformison laboratory to scale up studies in StirredFermenter using defatted oil seed cakes of agricultural bye-products as startingmaterial for maximum production of the antibiotic Bacitracin. In stirred fermenter, antibiotic formation reached maximum (342 i.u. ml- 1), 30 hours after inoculation at 37°C using different natural media such as defattedsoybean meal, glucose and metal ions.In solid-state fermentation, wheat bran, soybean meal, sunflower meal, rice hulls and their different combinationswere used. The antibiotic activity 48 hours after inoculation was 4540 i.u/g when only soybean was used.