Physiological Changes of Candida tropicalis Population Degrading Phenol in Fed Batch Reactor

Candida tropicalis can use phenol as the sole carbon and energy source. Experiments regarding phenol degradations from the water phase were carried out. The fermentor was operated as a fed-batch system with oxistat control. Under conditions of nutrient limitation and an excess of oxygen the respiration activity of cells was suppressed and some color metabolites (black-brown) started to be formed. An accumulation of these products inhibited the cell growth under aerobic conditions. Another impact was a decrease of the phenol hydroxylase activity as the key enzyme of the phenol degradation pathway at the end of the cell respiration activity. This decrease is linked with the above mentioned product inhibition. The cell death studied by fluorescent probe proceeded very slowly after the loss of the respiration activity. The starvation stress induced an increase of the endogenous respiration rate at the expense of phenol oxidation.