Process Evaluation of Recombinant Chitin Deacetylase Expression in E. Coli Rosetta pLysS Cells using Statistical Design of Experiments
Abstract Chitin is a natural polymer with N-acetylglucosamine units, extracted from seafood waste as a major source. It remains an underexplored polymer due to its crystalline structure. The commercial applicability can be improved if we could make it soluble. One of the routes employed to decrease this crystallinity is the conversion of chitin to chitosan via deacetylation. The industrial production of chitosan uses chemical methods, which leaves the process footprint on the environment. The greener alternative approach to producing chitosan is using chitin deacetylases (CDA). The enzymatically converted chitosan with known characteristics has a wide range of applications, importantly in the biomedical field. In the present paper, we report heterologous expression of CDA from a marine moneran; Bacillus aryabhattai B8W22. The process and the nutritional conditions were optimized for the submerged fermentation condition of E. coli Rosetta pLysS expressing the recombinant CDA using the design of experiment tools. The employment of central composite design (CCD) resulted in a ~2.39 fold increase in the total activity of expressed CDA with the process conditions of induction temperature at 22 ºC, agitation at 120 rpm, and 30 h of fermentation. The nutritional conditions required for the optimized expression were 0.061% glucose concentration and 1% lactose in media. The employment of these optimal growth conditions could result in cost-effective large-scale production of the lesser-explored moneran deacetylase, embarking on the greener route to produce biomedical grade chitosan.