Trehalose lipid biosurfactants produced by the actinomycetes Tsukamurella spumae and T. pseudospumae

Abstract

Actinomycetales are known to produce various secondary metabolites including products with surface-active and emulsifying properties known as biosurfactants. In this study, the nonpathogenic actinomycetes Tsukamurella spumae and Tsukamurella pseudospumae are described as producers of extracellular trehalose lipid biosurfactants when grown on sunflower oil or its main component glyceryltrioleate. Crude extracts of the trehalose lipids were purified using silica gel chromatography. The structure of the two trehalose lipid components (TL A and TL B) was elucidated using a combination of matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight/time-of-flight/tandem mass spectroscopy (MALDI-ToF-ToF/MS/MS) and multidimensional NMR experiments. The biosurfactants were identified as 1-α-glucopyranosyl-1-α-glucopyranosid carrying two acyl chains varying of C4 to C6 and C16 to C18 at the 2' and 3' carbon atom of one sugar unit. The trehalose lipids produced demonstrate surface-active behavior and emulsifying capacity. Classified as risk group 1 organisms, T. spumae and T. pseudospumae hold potential for the production of environmentally friendly surfactants.

Extracellular aromatic biosurfactant produced by Tsukamurella pseudospumae and T. spumae during growth on n–hexadecane

“…The compounds produced are most likely to contain aromatic moieties and hydrophobic units that differ from typical fatty acid residues reported to occur within Tsukamurella spp. (Choi et al 1999;Kügler et al 2014;Pasciak et al 2010;Vollbrecht et al 1998). Production of the compounds was achieved during cultivation with the hydrophobic carbon sources n-hexadecane or sunflower seed oil.…”

“…The production must thus be initiated by other differences in the cultivation media e.g. tryptone or NaNO 3 as nitrogen source that are not present in the media used in studies of Vollbrecht et al (1998) andKügler et al (2014). Further, the coproduction of trehalose lipids as known to occur in sunflower seed oil by both strains did not occur in the media applied.…”

“…It also differed to other surface active compounds so far described within Tsukamurella spp. such as trehalose (Kügler et al 2014;Pasciak et al 2010) and oligosaccharide lipids (Vollbrecht et al 1998) that have been produced in a mineral medium with sunflower seed oil as carbon source. Differences have been determined in structural characteristics and surface active properties, retardation factor R f ) and staining behaviour of the compound by TLC.…”

“…1998). Since then, the production of trehalose lipids have been described within the genera T. pulmonis (Pasciak et al 2010), T. spumae and T. pseudospumae (Kügler et al 2014). Choi et al (1999) purified a potential trehalose lipid from a Tsukamurella sp.…”

Microbiotechnology Based Surfactants and Their Applications

“…The production level is strongly influenced by non-favorable growth and production conditions due to a lack of knowledge about the organism used and compound produced when initially screening for novel surfactants or novel producer strains. With a few exceptions (Qian-Cutrone et al, 1999;Kügler et al, 2014), the average minimum volume for successful structure elucidation of an actinobacterial biosurfactant, is typically 20 l. Harvesting of the surfactants is type dependent and either whole cell broth (intracellular or membrane associated surfactants) or cell free supernatant is used as a starting point.…”