Improvement of ε-Poly-l-lysine Production by Co-Culture Fermentation Strategy

Abstract

ε-poly-l-lysine (ε-PL) has been routinely used as a natural and safe preservative for many years in the food industry. However, most existing production methods struggle to achieve low cost and high production simultaneously. In this work, we present a co-culture fermentation strategy to enhance ε-PL production. Specifically, we screened a strain from five different strains that could be co-cultured with Streptomyces albulus to raise the production of ε-PL. Subsequently, a single factor experiment and response surface design were used to optimize the conditions of co-culture fermentation to further improve the production of ε-PL. Moreover, the optimal fermentation process was successfully verified in a 2-L fermentor with fed batch fermentation. The production of ε-PL reached 27.07 ± 0.47 g/L by 144 h. Compared with single strain (S. albulus) fermentation, the production of ε-PL was increased by 31.47%. At the same time, the amount of bacteria increased by 19.62%, which means that the ε-PL synthesis ability of bacteria had been improved. All the obtained results showed great potential for co-culture fermentation in large-scale ε-PL production and provide a new fermentation strategy for ε-PL biosynthesis.