Ashwini Tilay

Preparation of ferulic acid from agricultural wastes: its improved extraction and purification.

Ferulic acid (FA) is a phenolic antioxidant present in plants, which is widely used in the food and cosmetic industry. In the present study, various agricultural wastes such as maize bran, rice bran, wheat bran, wheat straw, sugar cane baggasse, pineapple peels, orange peels, and pomegranate peels were screened for the presence of esterified FA (EFA). Among the sources screened, maize bran was found to contain the highest amount of EFA. Pineapple peels, orange peels, and pomegranate peels were also found to contain traces of EFA. Alkaline extraction of EFA from maize bran was carried out using 2 M NaOH. Response surface methodology (RSM) was used for optimization of EFA extraction, which resulted in a 1.3-fold increase as compared to the unoptimized conventional extraction technique. FA was analyzed by means of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Purification was carried out by adsorption chromatography using Amberlite XAD-16 followed by preparative high-performance thin-layer chromatography (HPTLC). The recovery of Amberlite XAD-16 purified FA was up to 57.97% with HPLC purity 50.89%. The fold purity achieved was 1.35. After preparative HPTLC, the maximum HPLC purity obtained was 95.35% along with an increase in fold purity up to 2.53.

Production of Biovanillin by One-Step Biotransformation Using Fungus Pycnoporous cinnabarinus

The current study proposes a one-step biotransformation process for vanillin production from ferulic acid using the wild fungal strain Pycnoporous cinnabarinus belonging to the family Basidiomycete. Improvement of biotransformation conditions was performed in two steps; initially a one factor at a time method was used to investigate effects of medium composition variables (i.e., carbon, nitrogen) and environmental factors such as pH on vanillin production. Subsequently, concentrations of medium components were optimized using an orthogonal matrix method. After primary screening, glucose as carbon source and corn steep liquor and ammonium chloride as organic and inorganic nitrogen source, respectively, supported maximum biotransformation of ferulic acid to vanillin. Under statistically optimum conditions vanillin production from ferulic acid by P. cinnabarinus was 126 mg/L with a molar yield of 54%. The overall molar yield of vanillin production increased by 4 times.

Microbial levan from Pseudomonas fluorescens: Characterization and medium optimization for enhanced production

Levan, a polyfructan which consists of D-fructofuranosyl residues linked predominantly by β-(2,6) linkage as a core chain with some β-(2,1) branch chains have potential applications in the pharmaceutical, food, and cosmetic industries. The present work reports on characterization of levan produced using Pseudomonas fluorescens by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and NMR and static fermentation condition optimization using one factor-at-a-time followed by statistical designs. The characterization of levan by FTIR revealed that structure of levan to be homologous to the standard levan sample. 13C and 1H NMR studies further successfully confirmed the levan structure. The optimized medium composition was observed to be (in g/L) sucrose 60; ammonium chloride 1.5; sodium nitrate 2.0, and casein peptone 15.0. The yield of levan was increased significantly from 5.27 to 15.42 g/L when the fermentation was carried out using optimal medium.

Novel Simplified and Rapid Method for Screening and Isolation of Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids Producing Marine Bacteria

Bacterial production of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) is a potential biotechnological approach for production of valuable nutraceuticals. Reliable method for screening of number of strains within short period of time is great need. Here, we report a novel simplified method for screening and isolation of PUFA-producing bacteria by direct visualization using the H2O2-plate assay. The oxidative stability of PUFAs in growing bacteria towards added H2O2 is a distinguishing characteristic between the PUFAs producers (no zone of inhibition) and non-PUFAs producers (zone of inhibition) by direct visualization. The confirmation of assay results was performed by injecting fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs) produced by selected marine bacteria to Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GCMS). To date, this assay is the most effective, inexpensive, and specific method for bacteria producing PUFAs and shows drastically reduction in the number of samples thus saves the time, effort, and cost of screening and isolating strains of bacterial PUFAs producers.