Mycoprotein Production from Date Waste Using Fusarium venenatum in a Submerged Culture

Background and objective: Production of single cell protein has various outstanding advantages, e.g., it can be grown on waste and it is environmental friendly as it helps in upgrading agricultural wastes. In the present study, the influence of process parameters on the biomass formation (g l(-1)), protein production (%w w(-1)) and volumetric productivity (g l(-1) h(-1)) of Fusarium venenatum IR372C was determined. Material and methods: The Vogel medium was used with glucose as the carbon source for pre culture cultivation and date sugar as the carbon source for production medium. In the first phase of the study, submerged fermentation was conducted in 500 ml flasks and a 3l stirred-tank bioreactor was exploited to conduct the submerged fermentation in the second phase. Plackett-Burman Design with eleven factors, i.e., date sugar concentration, NH4H2PO4, peptone, MgSO4, KH2PO4, temperature, time, shake rate, inoculate age, inoculate size, pH in two levels and Response Surface Methodology with three variables, i. e., date sugar concentration, time and inoculate size were employed to determine the fermentation condition by which the maximum biomass, protein and productivity were achieved. Results and conclusion: Based on obtained results, by using the selected levels of influencing process variables, a relatively high amount of total protein (ca. 4 g l(-1), 65.3% in the first phase using flasks and 5.5 g l(-1), 76% in the second phase by using the bioreactor, respectively) was achieved. The amino and fatty acid profiles of mycoprotein and its relatively high fiber content (6%) imply that mycoprotein could be incorporated in various types of foods as a functional ingredient. Conflict of interest All authors have declared that they don't have any conflict of interest for publishing this research.