Effects of oils and oil-related substrates on the synthetic activity of membrane-bound lipase from Rhizopus chinensis and optimization of the lipase fermentation media

The lipase from filamentous fungi Rhizopus chinensis, as a membrane-bound enzyme, possesses the excellent catalysis ability for esterification and transesterification reactions, and has a good potential in many industrial applications. In order to improve the synthetic activity of the lipase, the effects of oils and oil-related substrates on its production and the fermentation media optimization were investigated. Based on the results, it was suggested that oleic acid could be the important substrate for the lipase production. Among various oils and oil-related substrates, olive oil containing high content of oleic acid was the optimal one for the lipase production. Using orthogonal test and response surface methodology (RSM), the composition of fermentation media was further optimized. The optimized media for lipase synthetic activity and activity yield was composed of peptone 57.94 and 55.58 g L⁻¹, olive oil 21.94 and 22.99 g L⁻¹, maltose 12.91 and 14.34 g L⁻¹, respectively, with K₂HPO₄ 3 g L⁻¹, MgSO₄·7H₂O 5 g L⁻¹ and initial pH 6.0. Under the optimal conditions, the lipase activity and the activity yield were improved 61.5 and 93.4% comparing the results before optimization, respectively. The adequate models obtained had predicted the lipase production successfully.