Candida tropicalis BPU1, a novel isolate from the rumen of the Malabari goat, is a dual producer of biosurfactant and polyhydroxybutyrate

Abstract

This unique study reports a new strain (BPU1) of Candida tropicalis isolated from the rumen of the Malabari goat, showing dual production of biosurfactant and polyhydroxybutyrate. C. tropicalis strain BPU1, a facultative anaerobe, was tuned to become an aerobe in specially designed flask, the Benjamin flask. The puffy circular colonies were smooth, white-to-cream in colour, with pseudo-filaments. The strain fermented glucose, sucrose, maltose and dextrose, but not lactose and cellulose. It assimilated (NH 4 ) 2 SO 4 , peptone, glycine and arginine, but not NaNO 3 , as the nitrogen source. Interestingly, it utilized groundnut oil (up to 0.3%) in a specially designed basal mineral salt medium (BSM). Its capability for dual production of a biosurfactant and a polyhydroxybutyarate (PHB) was explored by various methods from the BSM-oil medium. Extracted biosurfactant from 6 day-old culture was biochemically characterized as a complex of lipid and carbohydrate with an R f value of 0.88 by thin layer chromatography. Its PHB production was confirmed by specific staining methods with Nile blue sulphate, Sudan black B and Sudan 3. Briefly, this first-ever report gives ample physical evidence for the dual production of a glycolipid (biosurfactant) and PHB by C. tropicalis strain BPU1 on a specially designed medium, which would open up elaborate research on this yeast.

Candida tropicalis BPU1 produces polyhydroxybutyrate on raw starchy substrates

“…C. tropicalis BPU1 (microbial type culture collection No. 5920) isolated from rumen of Malabari goat and reported from our laboratory was used for this study. The partial 16S rRNA sequence of the isolate identified was submitted to the GenBank nucleotide sequence database with accession number JQ353488.…”

“…Production of PHB in yeasts has certain advantages over bacteria, as they are well explored physiologically and genetically. The larger size and physiological flexibility of yeast cells make it a suitable system, for the production of industrially significant biomolecules through simple genetic manipulations .…”

Identification of Levica yeasts as a potential ruminal microbial additive

“…C. tropicalis has been used in biotechnology, due to its ability to degrade hydrocarbons, ferment cocoa beans (Ardhana and Fleet, 2003), degrade polyphenols in wast water (Ettayebi et al, 2003), and produce polyhydroxybutyrate (Priji et , 2013). Further, C. tropicalis has been isolated from the rumens of goats (Priji et al, 2013). Due to their genetic similarity and because both karyotypes were identical, it was assumed that L25 and C. tropicalis were the same yeast.…”

Response Surface Methodology for Optimizing the Production of Biosurfactant by Candida tropicalis on Industrial Waste Substrates

“…Given the industrial importance of yeasts and their potential to biosurfactant production, a growing number of aspects related to the production of biosurfactants from yeasts have been the topic of research during the last decade (Amaral et al, 2010). Some species of Candida , such as Candida bombicola (Roelants et al, 2013; Luna et al, 2016), Candida glabrata (Luna et al, 2009; Gusmão et al, 2010), Candida lipolytica (Santos et al, 2013; Rufino et al, 2014), Candida sphaerica (Sobrinho et al, 2013a; Luna et al, 2015), Candida utilis (Campos et al, 2013), Candida guilliermondii (Sitohy et al, 2010), Candida antarctica (Kim et al, 2002; Hua et al, 2003), and Candida tropicalis (Batista et al, 2010; Priji et al, 2013) are known to produce biosurfactant.…”