A hydrocarbon utilizing strain of iVicrococcus vuriuns 2Fa isolated from local soil has been found to yield lysine 2.6 g 1-l. Addition of B-vitamins and trace elements to the optimal media, has been found to stimulate growth and enhance lysine yield. KINOSHITA [l] isolated a glutamic acid producing Micrococcus glutamicus ever since microbial production of amino acid has become an established branch of industrial microbiology. Among the other amino acids, microbial production of lysine has been extensively studied. Extracellular lysine production is not restricted to any particular group of microorganisms, though the high yielding strains are mostly the species of Arthrobacter, Corynebacterium and Brevibacterium. During the screening of lysine producing bacteria from among the hydrocarbon utilizers, a strain of Micrococcus varians 2Fa was isolated [2]. Later some of the optimal conditions have been studied [3]. This communication reports the effect of some B-vitamins and trace elements on growth and extracellular lysine yield.
Materials and MethodsThe organisms was grown in 250 ml ERLENMEYER flasks with 50 ml modified (0.1% (w/v) nitrogen source and with 4% straight run gas oil as the carbon source) synthetic medium of MAKULA and FINNEBTY [4] and was sterilized by autoclaving. However, the straight run gas oil was sterilized by filtration (Jena G 5). The flasks were inoculated with an aqueous suspension of bacteria (2% v/v) from 24 h old adapted cells grown in the same medium and incubated a t 30°C on a rotary shaker (120 rpm) for 72 h. Initially the medium was made free of trace salts used, following the method of BANERJEE and NANDI[5]. All the stock solution of vitamins and trace salts were sterilized separately by filtration (Jena G 5) and added to the medium aseptically as required. Growth was measured in terms of constant dry weight of washed bacterial cells. Extracellular lysine was measured colorimetrically [6]. The experiment was repeated three times with six replicates each time and the mean values are presented. DUNCAN'S multiple range test was used to calculate the statistical significance at 5% level [7].