Medium Optimization for the Production of Lipidless Biomass By Cunninghamella sp. 2A1 Using Response Surface Methodology

A statistical design approach has been used to optimize the production of biomass by Cunninghamella sp. 2A1, evaluated based on lipidless biomass. A 2 3 full factorial central composite design (CCD) was chosen to study the combined effects of three factors; ammonium tartrate, peptone and glucose concentrations. The p-value for each factor was <0.05 suggesting that these factors have significant effects on the production of lipidless biomass. The production is represented by a linear model with p-value <0.0001. The optimized medium consisting of 3.86g/L ammonium tartrate, 55.84g/L glucose and 7.73g/L peptone predicted a lipidless biomass of 16.83g/L. Results from four replications based on the optimized medium produced an average of 18.48g/L lipidless biomass, which is in close agreement with the predicted value. The coefficient for glucose was the highest indicating it to be the most significant factor affecting lipidless biomass production.