Browsing by Subject "Food Safety--methods."

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Open Access
Cost-effective production of biological materials for food applications
(2012) Han, Diren
This thesis consists of two chapters; in the first chapter response surface optimization of the production of a potential probiotic strain was studied by using bioreactors and in the second chapter screening of biosurfactant producing microorganisms was carried out followed by the purification and characterization of the biosurfactant produced. Probiotics are live microorganisms that when administered in adequate amounts are favorable to their host. They are used on livestock to enhance the growth of animals, improve the efficiency of feed conversion and to decrease mortality rate. Therefore, it is important to produce these microorganisms in high amounts. However, process economics is a problem in large scale production of the microorganisms. Main factors that affect the process economics are the growth medium of the organism and the process conditions. Therefore, optimizing the composition of the growth media and cultivation conditions are of crucial importance in large scale production. In this study, optimization of growth media composition and cultivation conditions of a novel probiotic strain, Bacillus pumilus STF26, was done. Factors optimized were temperature, pH and the concentrations of dextrose as carbon source, yeast extract as nitrogen source, KH2PO4 and MgSO4.7H2O. Response surface methodology was used to optimize the parameter and the optimum values are found to be 30.9 °C, 6.9, 20 % (w/v), 1.526 % (w/v), 0.1 % (w/v) and 0.5 % (w/v) for temperature, pH and the concentrations of dextrose, yeast extract, KH2PO4 and MgSO4.7H2O, respectively. Maximum biomass at optimum conditions was 10.42 g/L which is nearly 2.5 times higher when compared to the one obtained by using LB medium at optimized temperature and pH values. In the second chapter, production and characterization of a biosurfactant produced by a novel strain of Staphylococcus xylosus, STF1, was studied. Biosurfactants are surface active agents that have a broad range of applications in different industries and they have several advantages over their chemically synthesized counterparts. However, they cannot compete economically with synthetic surfactants due to their high production cost, the difficulties in downstream processing and the lack of overproducing strains. In this study a novel strain that produces biosurfactant, STF1, was isolated and the biosurfactant was characterized by using mass spectrometry and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. FTIR results indicated the lipopeptide nature of the biosurfactant produced by this strain. Moreover, the mass of the purified biosurfactant was 931.9550 (m/z).
Open Access
Novel biological materials for food and environmental applications
(2012) Umu, Özgün Candan Onarman
Probiotics are microorganisms that have many health benefits to their host, such as promoting normal intestinal microflora, inhibiting the growth of pathogenic microorganisms, improving digestion and stimulation of gastrointestinal immunity. Probiotic microorganisms include bacteria, fungi and yeast, and they are highly desirable to be used as animal feed supplements. For this application, Bacillus species are preferred since they are resistant to extreme environmental conditions due to their spore-forming capacity in addition to having other important probiotic characteristics. In the first chapter of this study, 84 independent bacterial colonies were obtained from different bovine chyme samples and among them 29 were determined as belonging to genus Bacillus. These isolates were principally screened for their antimicrobial activity against a group of selected bacteria including pathogenic organisms such as Salmonella enterica, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus. 7 strains (STF4, STF8, STF9, STF10, STF15, STF25 and STF26) with highest antimicrobial activity were further tested for other probiotic properties. They were resistant to the gastrointestinal conditions and most of the antibiotics tested. In addition, they were checked for the presence of plasmids and performed cytotoxicity tests. We propose novel Bacillus strains that have potential to be used as probiotic organisms. TNT is a hazardous nitroaromatic compound that can be found in soil, sediment and water due to extensive contamination from military munitions after the World War II. It has many negative health effects on almost all of the living organisms (e.g. bacteria, fungi, algae, animal and human). So far, bacteria, fungi and plants are commonly used for biodegradation process but only a little is known about effect of algae on this issue. However, algae can be used as a good alternative for bioremediation and biosensor purposes as they do not require advance technology and are effective in terms of cost. 5 different microalgae strains (STA1, STA2, STA3, STA4 and STA5) were tested in terms of survival in different TNT concentration and biodegradation capability of TNT. These strains were isolated from water contaminated with TNT obtained from the Brass Factory affiliated with Mechanical and Chemical Industry Corporation (MKE) located in Kırıkkale, Turkey. Even though these strains did not use TNT as carbon source for growth; they utilize it at different degrees for other metabolic activities. Moreover, the growth of STA2 strain was not inhibited by high TNT concentrations (up to 50 mg/L TNT).