Cellulose synthesis by Komagataeibacter rhaeticus strain P 1463 isolated from Kombucha

Abstract

Isolate B17 from Kombucha was estimated to be an efficient producer of bacterial cellulose (BC). The isolate was deposited under the number P 1463 and identified as Komagataeibacter rhaeticus by comparing a generated amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP™) DNA fingerprint against a reference database. Static cultivation of the K. rhaeticus strain P 1463 in Hestrin and Schramm (HS) medium resulted in 4.40 ± 0.22 g/L BC being produced, corresponding to a BC yield from glucose of 25.30 ± 1.78 %, when the inoculum was made with a modified HS medium containing 10 g/L glucose. Fermentations for 5 days using media containing apple juice with analogous carbon source concentrations resulted in 4.77 ± 0.24 g/L BC being synthesised, corresponding to a yield from the consumed sugars (glucose, fructose and sucrose) of 37.00 ± 2.61 %. The capacity of K. rhaeticus strain P 1463 to synthesise BC was found to be much higher than that of two reference strains for cellulose production, Komagataeibacter xylinus DSM 46604 and Komagataeibacter hansenii DSM 5602, and was also considerably higher than that of K. hansenii strain B22, isolated from another Kombucha sample. The BC synthesised by K. rhaeticus strain P 1463 after 40 days of cultivation in HS medium with additional glucose supplemented to the cell culture during cultivation was shown to have a degree of polymerization of 3300.0 ± 122.1 glucose units, a tensile strength of 65.50 ± 3.27 MPa and a length at break of 16.50 ± 0.83 km. For the other strains, these properties did not exceed 25.60 ± 1.28 MPa and 15.20 ± 0.76 km.

Microbial composition of Kombucha determined using amplicon sequencing and shotgun metagenomics

“…The K. rhaeticus bin (AS3 bin7) showed 99.84% similarity with the isolate genome of K. rhaeticus AF1 from Kombucha (dos Santos et al, 2014) and Z. bailii bin showed 99.13% similarity with Z. bailii CLIB 213 T from wine (Galeote, Bigey, Devillers, Neuvéglise, & Dequin, 2013) and were visualized along the reference genomes using QUAST (Figure 4). The K. rhaeticus is a cellulose producing species of Komagataeibacter genus and its presence in Kombucha has been previously reported (dos Santos et al, 2014;Semjonovs et al, 2017). Komagataeibacter species are usually found on various fruits and it is known that the cellulosic pellicle produced by these bacteria facilitates both adhesion to plants and protection against environmental factors such as UV (Williams & Cannon, 1989).…”

Shelf life estimation of Blackberry (Rubus glaucus Benth) with bacterial cellulose film coating from Komagataeibacter xylinus

“…The morphological image of bacterial cellulose obtained at the SEM analysis shows that the cellulose microfibrils have a single structure composed for ultrafine fibers forming the bacterial cellulose network (Semjonovs et al, 2017). Figure 3 also shows that the bacterial cellulose obtained in this study is ultrapure, with a higher crystallinity and degree of polymerization compared with the reported cellulose from plants (Römling & Galperin, 2015).…”

Phototrophic co-cultures from extreme environments: community structure and potential value for fundamental and applied research

“…It remains to be seen if OTU000042 provides N 2 to the other organisms in this co-culture or if it consumes all of the fixed N 2 itself. Acetobacteraceae are α-proteobacteria often associated with low pH environments and are known for their ability to efficiently synthesize biological cellulose 59,60 . Furthermore, Acetobacteraceae have been reported before as some of the dominant players in photosynthetic consortia during soil formation 61 .…”