Evaluation of Filamentous Fungal Biomass Cultivated on Vinasse as an Alternative Nutrient Source of Fish Feed: Protein, Lipid, and Mineral Composition

Abstract

The rapid growth of aquaculture and scarcity of conventional fish feed supplements has prompted the introduction of new sustainable supplementation sources. In this study, the potential of five strains of fungal biomass of Ascomycetes and Zygomycetes edible filamentous fungi, Aspergillus oryzae, Neurospora intermedia, Rizhopus oryzae, Monascus purpureus, and Fusarium venenatum, cultivated on vinasse, a by-product of the bioethanol industry, as alternative protein sources for fishmeal in the fish diet was evaluated. It was observed that 5% vinasse with an initial pH of 5–6.5 can support fungal biomass yields of 34.3 ± 2.4–118.5 ± 3.9 g DM/L for A. Oryzae, N. intermedia, and R. oryzae. High protein contents of about 44.7%, 57.6%, and 50.9% (w/w), and fat contents of 7.0%, 3.5%, and 5.5% (w/w) were obtained for A. oryzae, N. intermedia, and R. oryzae, respectively. The latter three fungi species contained noticeable amino acid contents, including promising profiles of amino acids that are highly compatible with those of fishmeal. These findings provide evidence that fungal biomasses, with their relatively high protein content, good amino acid profiles, and other essential nutrients, are a promising supplementation alternative that can be produced from low-value by-products and organic-rich waste streams like vinasse to meet the dietary protein requirements in fish feed.

From stale bread and brewers spent grain to a new food source using edible filamentous fungi

“…The sum of total indispensable amino acids (TIAA)/g of total amino acids (TAA) also increased after SSF ( Table 2 ).The amino acid profile after SSFis in agreement with those reported by [ 65 ] for pure N. intermedia biomass. The decrease in selected AA after SSF, mainly glutamine, proline, and the indispensable AAphenylalanine, may be attributable to the preferential utilization of these AA by N. intermedia .…”

Production of L-carnitine-enriched edible filamentous fungal biomass through submerged cultivation

“…The fungal biomass was harvested from the medium at different time intervals (24,48, and 72 h) using a stainless-steel kitchen sieve (1 mm 2 pore area). Samples were taken from the remaining liquids and stored at −20°C for further analysis by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) [27]. The biomass was thoroughly washed with distilled water to remove extracellular medium residuals followed by freeze-drying at 0.05 bar and −50°C to constant weight.…”

A Critical Review on the Ubiquitous Role of Filamentous Fungi in Pollution Mitigation

“…However, integration of this fungal cultivation into a facility possessing distillation columns for ethanol recovery and dryers for animal feed renders ethanol concentration limit obsolete and can lead to a yearly ethanol production improvement of 5.5%, based on a facility producing 200,000 m 3 of ethanol per year [77], energy savings due to reduced medium viscosity [78], and lower environmental impact [79]. A similar reasoning has been applied to cornderived stillage [46] and vinasse [37,41,80], the counterpart from sugarcane-based ethanol production using the ascomycetes Neurospora intermedia and Aspergillus oryzae, and the zygomycetes Rhizopus oryzae and Rhizopus oligosporus, all GRAS filamentous fungi. The process development on cultivation of filamentous fungi in sidestreams originated after ethanol production and separation, using starchy materials, has been reported at bioreactor scales of up to 1600 L. It is believed that such process-tailored approaches can open more filamentous fungus-based processes for valorization of industrial sidestreams.…”