The use of low-cost brewery waste product for the production of surfactin as a natural microbial biocide

• Main Authors: Talita Corrêa Nazareth, Conrado Planas Zanutto, Lakshmi Tripathi, Abdulaziz Juma, Danielle Maass, Antônio Augusto Ulson de Souza, Selene Maria de Arruda Guelli Ulson de Souza, Ibrahim M. Banat
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2020-12-01
• Series: Biotechnology Reports
• Subjects: Surfactin; Biosurfactants; Brewery waste; Biofilm; Adhesion
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2215017X20304847

Surfactin has potential as next generation antibiofilm agent to combat antimicrobial resistance against emerging pathogens. However, the widespread industrial applications of surfactin is hampered by its high production cost. In this work, surfactin was produced from Bacillus subtilis using a low-cost brewery waste as a carbon source. The strain produced 210.11 mg L−1 after 28 h. The antimicrobial activity was observed against all tested strains, achieving complete inhibition for Pseudomonas aeruginosa, at 500 μg mL−1. A growth log reduction of 3.91 was achieved for P. aeruginosa while, Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus epidermidis showed between 1 and 2 log reductions. In the anti-biofilm assays against P. aeruginosa, the co-incubation, anti-adhesive and disruption showed inhibition, where the greatest inhibition was observed in the co-incubation assay (79.80%). This study provides evidence that surfactin produced from a low-cost substrate can be a promising biocide due to its antimicrobial and anti-biofilm abilities against pathogens.