Author(s)

Shaiful Azuar Mohamad^1*, Mat Rasol Awang¹, Rusli Ibrahim¹, Choong Yew Keong², Mohd Yusof Hamzah¹, Rosnani Abdul Rashid¹, Sobri Hussein¹, Khairuddin Abdul Rahim¹, Fauzi Daud³, Aidil Abdul Hamid³, Wan Mohtar Wan Yusoff³

¹Agrotechnology and Biosciences Division, Malaysian Nuclear Agency, Bangi, Malaysia.
²Herbal Medicine Research Centre, Institute For Medical Research, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
³Faculty of Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Malaysia.

Four local mushroom species, viz. Auricularis polytricha, Lentinus edodes, Agrocybe sp and Pleurotus flabellatus were grown under submerged culture and screened for endopolysaccharides. The fermentation was done in 250 ml working volume Erlenmeyer flask and the fermentation curves for all species were established. Pleurotus flabellatus has the highest rate of biomass production at the rate of 0.180 g/L/day, at 10 days hence chosen for further investigation. Two additional media, viz. Mushroom Complete Media (MCM) and Yeast Malt (YM) were selected to be compared with potato extract(PE) media used initially. MCM media produced the highest biomass productivity at the rate of 0.311 g/L/day. Pleurotus flabellatus biomass was extracted using modified Mizuno method and the endopolysaccharide obtained was tested for β-glucan. The yield of β-glucan was 7.70 ± 1.11 g/100g. The polysaccharides were purified using column chromatography to yield four fractions. The fourth fraction F₄, gave the highest molecular weight at 3.058 × 10⁶ Dalton (11.8%) and 1.282 × 10⁴ Dalton (88.2%). The mushroom, P. flabbelatus was cultured using air-lift bioreactor, and the highest productivity was obtained at air-flowrate 2 L/min, yielding 2.25 g/L/day. The yield of biomass against substrate used (glucose consumption) Y_b/s was 0.78 g/g.

Submerged Culture Fermentation, Mushroom, β-Glucan, Column Chromatography, Molecular Weight

Mohamad, S. , Awang, M. , Ibrahim, R. , Keong, C. , Hamzah, M. , Abdul Rashid, R. , Hussein, S. , Abdul Rahim, K. , Daud, F. , Hamid, A. and Wan Yusoff, W. (2015) Production of Endopolysaccharides from Malaysia’s Local Mushrooms in Air-Lift Bioreactor. Advances in Bioscience and Biotechnology, 6, 456-462. doi: 10.4236/abb.2015.67046.