Microbial Fermentation and Shelf Life of Potential Biotechnological Products Capable of Pesticide Degradation

Abstract

The pesticide active ingredient azoxystrobin is widely used in agriculture and has negative effects for the environment and contained organisms. Bacterial strains have been reported to degrade azoxystrobin, but precise methodologies for producing and storing these strains as potential biotechnological products are lacking. The study focused on creating and optimising a non-sterile, small-scale microbial fermentation protocol to produce azoxystrobin-degrading products and to test their shelf life. By testing 14 variants and sampling at three production and two storage time points, the trial demonstrated the successful production and storage of microbial products capable of pesticide degradation. Various measurement parameters such as pH value and organic acids were used to monitor the quality of the microbial products during the production and storage. Further, we developed and validated qPCR assays to rapidly and specifically assess the concentration of the two azoxystrobin degrading strains, namely Bacillus subtilis strain MK101 and Rhodococcus fascians strain MK144. To ensure good specificity, the combination of two qPCR assays targeting two different genome regions was implemented for each strain. The study highlights the significant impact of media selection and bacterial inoculum quantity on the microbial product quality.