Tzu-Yu Chen, Shella Permatasari Santoso, Shin-Ping Lin
Bacterial cellulose (BC) is a microbial cellulose that presents various characteristics such as high mechanical strength, high water content, and great biocompatibility and biodegradability. Therefore, it provides great potential to be applied in functional packaging applications. In this study, formic acid (80 µg/mL) was found to promote BC production (a 23% increase in yield from 5.18 to 6.38 g/L) utilizing quorum sensing-related gene (ginI) induction within 5 days of cultivation. The enhancement in BC relied on the addition of FA in static culture, and there was no need to shift to another production system, thus providing an economical approach for industrial production. The characteristic analysis showed that the induced BC still retained its high water-holding capacity (98.4%) with no other structure, morphology, or property changes including chemical groups, crystallinity (80.4%), and thermostability (with Tmax at 360 °C). Analysis of the produced BC showed that it is a suitable, ecofriendly biomaterial for food packaging, and its further evaluation will be accomplished in future studies. © 2022 by the authors.
School of Food Safety, Taipei Medical University, 250 Wu-Hsing Street, Taipei, 11031, Taiwan; Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Cell Biology, School of Medicine, Taipei Medical University, 250 Wu-Hsing Street, Taipei, 11031, Taiwan; Department of Chemical Engineering, Widya Mandala Surabaya Catholic University, Kalijudan 37, Surabaya, 60114, Indonesia; Research Center of Biomedical Device, Taipei Medical University, 250 Wu-Hsing Street, Taipei, 11031, Taiwan; TMU Research Center for Digestive Medicine, Taipei Medical University, 250 Wu-Hsing Street, Taipei, 11031, Taiwan