The formation of water soluble vitamins (vitamin B12, vitamin B6, riboflavin, thiamine, nicotinic acid and nicotinamide) during the tempe solid substrate fermentation was investigated. The role of several strains of Rhizopus oligosporus, R. arrhizus, and R. stolonifer and the role of several bacteria in the vitamin formation process were checked. All fungal and bacterial strains were isolated from Indonesian tempe and soaking water samples. The Rhizopus strains formed riboflavin, nicotinic acid, nicotinamide and vitamin B6. The final concentrations of these substances depended on the different strains involved and on the fermentation time. Isolates of R. oligosporus were generally the best vitamin formers. The moulds did not produce physiologically active vitamin B12. The thiamine content decreased during fermentation. The addition of bacteria, which had been selected in a screening for vitamin B12 production, resulted in an increase of physiologically active vitamin B12. Citrobacter freundii and Klebsiella pneumoniae showed the best formation capabilities. Furthermore, the bacteria produced riboflavin and vitamin B6 in addition to the moulds. The influence of Rhizopus on the vitamin B12 formation of Cit. freundii was also investigated. The vitamin content of tempe that was fermented with the mould and the bacterium was three times as high as a control fermentation with Cit. freundii only.

The influence of some fermentation parameters on vitamin B12 formation by strains of Citrobacterjfreundii and Klebsiella pneumoniae isolated from Indonesian tempeh samples during tempeh fermentation was investigated. A decrease in fermentation temperature from 32 to 24°C led to a decrease in vitamin B12 formation. Inoculation of soybeans with different numbers of cells of C. freundii at the beginning of solid-substrate fermentation showed that only the velocity of vitamin formation and not the final amount of vitamin formed depended on the number of cells. The addition of cobalt and 5,6-dimethylbenzimidazole increased the vitamin B12 content of tempeh. Nevertheless, levels of incorporation of the two precursors into the vitamin B12 molecule were very low. Neither C. freundii nor K. pneumoniae possessed the genes encoding the enterotoxins Shiga-like toxin SLT IA, heat-labile enterotoxin LT Ih, and heat-stable enterotoxin ST Ih, as indicated by PCR. This result supports the suggested use of these two strains to form vitamin B12 during tempeh fermentation in Indonesia.

Degradation of phenanthrene by Arthrobacter polychromooenes isolated from a contaminated soil was investigated. In experiments in which [9-14C]-phenanthrene was incubated with cultures of A. polychromooenes containing 150 mg phenanthrene/1 it was shown that after 26 h of incubation 47.7% of the recovered radiolabelled carbon originally present was metabolized to 14CO2, 47.8% was recovered from the aqueous fraction, and 4.5% remained in the dichloromethane fraction. Increasing phenanthrene concentration in the culture medium resulted in improved growth and degradation, rates, probably due to the higher amount of phenanthrene crystals in the medium. Shifting the temperature from 30°C to 35°C did not influence phenanthrene degradation significantly but inhibited cell division of A. polychromogenes. Medium supplementation with glucose led to stimulation of phenanthrene degradation at low amounts of glucose (0.45 g/l) whereas at higher concentrations (3 g/l) phenanthrene mineralization decreased.

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