CULTIVATION STRATEGIES OF REC LIPASE FROM STAPHYLOCOCCUS CARNOSUS

Abstract

Increasing interest in lipases has led to the developement of new applications and production processes. Scince manyyears it has been knownthat certain Staphylococci produce extracellular lipases (Arvidson et al., 1971; Sztajer et al., 1987). Some species are pathogenic, while others have been extensively used as starter cultures for food industry. In this work the formation of a lipase from S. carnosus TM 300 whichis generally recognized as safe was studied. The organism carrying a plasmid pLipPS1 with the lipase gene from S. hyicus was constructed by Götz et al. (1985). Lipase production from bacterial strains depends on environmental factor such as cultivation temperature, composition of nitrogen, carbon and lipid sources, the concentration of inorganic salts and the availability of oxygen. Additionaly, care must be taken to preserve the biological activity of the product. When carrying out cultivations of S. carnosus TM 300::pLipPS1 in shaking flasks without baffles a lipase production of more than 20 mg/l was obtained. In contrast to this result, the cultivation in a lab scale stirred and aerated fermentor yielded muchless lipase. As shown in this paper, this discrepancy originates from differences in cultivation conditions which maylead to lipase inactivation.