Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Biol Chem. Aug 26, 2015; 6(3): 265-271
Published online Aug 26, 2015. doi: 10.4331/wjbc.v6.i3.265
Effect of agitation speed on the morphology of Aspergillus niger HFD5A-1 hyphae and its pectinase production in submerged fermentation
Darah Ibrahim, Haritharan Weloosamy, Sheh-Hong Lim
Darah Ibrahim, Haritharan Weloosamy, Sheh-Hong Lim, Industrial Biotechnology Research Laboratory, School of Biological Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Penang, Malaysia
Author contributions: Ibrahim D designed and coordinated the research; Weloosamy H performed the majority of experiments; Lim SH analyzed the data; Ibrahim D, Weloosamy H and Lim SH wrote the paper.
Supported by Universiti Sains Malaysia Scientific Research Fund.
Institutional review board statement: Our experiment was not related to the stated fields. Thus, no document can be provided.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No conflict of interest to declare.
Data sharing statement: We do not have data sharing statement to be attached.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Sheh-Hong Lim, PhD, Researcher, Industrial Biotechnology Research Laboratory, School of Biological Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Penang, Malaysia. limshehhong77@gmail.com
Telephone: +60-12-4629487 Fax: +60-4-6565125
Received: March 5, 2015
Peer-review started: March 7, 2015
First decision: April 27, 2015
Revised: June 7, 2015
Accepted: June 30, 2015
Article in press: July 2, 2015
Published online: August 26, 2015
Processing time: 173 Days and 22.6 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: We report the influence of agitation speed on pectinase production on our newly isolate Aspergillus niger (A. niger) HFM5A-1 in submerged fermentation. The agitation speed was found to influence pectinase production in a batch cultivation system. However, higher agitation speeds than the optimal speed (150 rpm) reduced pectinase production which due to shear forces and also collision among the suspended fungal cells in the cultivation medium. It was found that agitation speed affected the morphological characteristics of the fungal hyphae/mycelia of A. niger HFD5A-1 by altering their external as well as internal cell structures.