Abstract: The production of elastase by Bacillus sp. EL31410 at various temperatures was investigated. In order to study the effect of temperature on elastase fermentation, different cultivation temperatures, ranging from 39 °C to 28 °C, were evaluated in shake flask. The result indicated that 37 °C was best for cell growth at earlier stage; while maximum elastase activity was obtained when the cells were cultivated at 30 °C. This result was verified by batch fermentation in 5-L bioreactor under 37 °C and 30 °C temperature, respectively. The specific cell growth rate at 37 °C was higher than that at 30 °C during earlier stage of cultivation. The maximum value [5.5 U/(h·g DCW)] of elastase formation rate occurred at 24 h at 30 °C compared to 4.6 U/(h·g DCW) at 30 h at 37 °C. Based on these results, two-stage temperature shift strategy and oscillatory temperature cultivation mode were evaluated in the next study. When compared to single temperature of 37 °C or 30 °C, both two-stage temperature shift strategy and oscillatory temperature strategy improved biomass but did not yield the same result as expected for elastase production. The maximum biomass (both 8.6 g/L) was achieved at 30 h at 37 °C, but at 42 h using two-stage temperature cultivation strategy. The highest elastase production (652 U/ml) was observed at 30 °C in batch process. It was concluded that cultivation at constant temperature of 30 °C was appropriate for elastase production by Bacillus sp. EL31410.

Key words: Bacillus sp. EL31410, Elastase, Temperature, Batch fermentation, Temperature-shift strategy

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