Utilization of Low-Cost Fatty Acid Sources by Bacterial Isolate for Improved Production of Valuable Prodigiosin

Abstract

Prodigiosin, a bright pinkish-red bioactive compound, has enormous pharmacological significance as anti-cancer, anti-microbial, anti-oxidant and immunosuppressive agents. This is produced by several bacterial species such as Serratia, Pseudomonas and Streptomyces. It is one of the most conspicuous bacterial pigments extant in the microbial world. In the present work, cost-effective production of prodigiosin from Serratia marcescens NITDPER1 an indigenous bacterial strain isolated from paper mill effluent was studied. The pigment yield from this isolate was much less in nutrient broth media and peptone glycerol media 0.047 ± 0.001 g L−1 and 0.02 ± 0.003 g L−1, respectively, at 30 °C, pH 7 and 120 rpm. To increase production, fatty acid as carbon source, such as peanut oil, peanut powder and palm oil, was used that gave better yield compared with common media. Among these three, peanut oil gave the highest yield (5.36 ± 0.81 g L−1) followed by palm oil (4.43 ± 0.72 g L−1) and peanut powder (3 ± 0.45 g L−1). From economical perspectives, palm oil as a low-cost fatty acid source showed noticeable production and thus can be thought of an alternative nutrient source. The extracted pigment characterized by UV–visible spectroscopy (ƛmax = 535 nm), TLC (Rf = 0.9), HPLC (RT = 2.865), FTIR and NMR confirmed it as prodigiosin. The kinetic parameters of Luedeking–Piret model for pigment production in different fatty acid media revealed growth-associated production.