Valorization of Cheese Whey as a Feedstock for Production of Cyclosporin A by Tolypocladium inflatum

Abstract

Food waste-based biorefineries are considered an essential concept for the implementation of a sustainable circular economy. In this study, cheese whey powder (CWP), a dairy industry waste, was utilized to produce cyclosporin A (CsA). As it is difficult to valorize CWP because its components vary depending on the origin, a process for sugar conversion via acid hydrolysis was designed to obtain reproducible results using refined whey powder (WP) of a consistent quality. Acid hydrolysis was carried out using 2% (w/w) HCl and biomass loading of 50 g/L at 121 °C for 20 min. CWP hydrolysates were utilized to ferment Tolypocladium inflatum ATCC 34921. CsA production was found to be 51.3 mg/L at 12 days, a 1.4-fold increase compared to the control (commercial glucose, 36.3 mg/L). Our results showed that 100 g CWP can be converted to 81.8 mg of CsA. This finding demonstrated that CWP can be used as a sustainable feedstock for biorefineries.