Medium Optimization for the Production of Lipidless Biomass By Cunninghamella sp. 2A1 Using Response Surface Methodology

Abstract

A statistical design approach has been used to optimize the production of biomass by Cunninghamella sp. 2A1, evaluated based on lipidless biomass. A 2^3 full factorial central composite design (CCD) was chosen to study the combined effects of three factors; ammonium tartrate, peptone and glucose concentrations. The p-value for each factor was <0.05 suggesting that these factors have significant effects on the production of lipidless biomass. The production is represented by a linear model with p-value <0.0001. The optimized medium consisting of 3.86g/L ammonium tartrate, 55.84g/L glucose and 7.73g/L peptone predicted a lipidless biomass of 16.83g/L. Results from four replications based on the optimized medium produced an average of 18.48g/L lipidless biomass, which is in close agreement with the predicted value. The coefficient for glucose was the highest indicating it to be the most significant factor affecting lipidless biomass production.

Keywords

• Medium optimization
• Cunninghamella sp. 2A1
• Lipidless biomass
• Response surface