Production of dextranase by NRC-F103 and its application in cane juice treatment and enhancing ethanol production from sugarcane molasses

Background and objectives
One of the important applications of dextranase enzyme is preventing dextran accumulation in sugarcane juice as well as, consequently, for enhancing the resultant fermentable reducing sugars and ethanol yield in the fermentation of sugarcane molasses by yeasts.
Materials and methods
Different materials and methods were used for fungal strains [screening, mutation ultraviolet (UV), inoculum preparation, cultivation type ‘solid-state fermentation,’, culture substrates], dextranase (production, assay, soluble protein determination), purification, characterization, application in ethanol production by fermentation from sugarcane molasses, dextran estimation, and determination of reducing sugars.
Results and conclusion
Six fungal strains (namely FK-923, F-93 F-258, NRC-F18, NRC-F103, and NRC-F107) were screened on sorghum, sugar beet pulp, wheat bran, and orange peels using the solid-state fermentation technique to produce dextranase enzyme. The fungus NRC-F103 cultivated on orange peels showed promising enzyme yield than other tested fungal strains. Then, optimization of culture conditions for dextranase production was carried out. Moisture content, initial pH value, incubation temperature, and incubation period were optimized to be 2 : 1 (v/w), 5.0, 35°C and 96 h, respectively. Five inorganic nitrogen sources were trailed at equivalent levels as sole nitrogen in the fermentation medium did not result in any increase in enzyme activity. Subjecting the fungal to UV resulted in a 75% increase in enzyme activity corresponding to the mother strain before subjecting to UV. Under the above conditions, 118 U/g original substrate was obtained. Isopropanol 1 : 1 (v/v) was applied for precipitation enzyme protein, as 32% of total protein involving 68% of total enzyme activity was obtained and specific activity was 42.94 U/mg protein compared with 16.4 U/mg protein in the culture supernatant. A study on obtained dextranase showed that it has an optimum that pH ranged from 4.5 to 5.5 as well as it gave the highest activity when incubated between 35 and 40°C. Promising results were obtained when the enzyme was applied in cane juice to prevent accumulation of dextran. Enzyme supplementation to diluted sugarcane molasses (26%, w/v) resulted in an increase in reducing sugars by 2.64%. Ethanol was increased by about 2.36% (v/v) in the fermentation medium supplemented with an enzyme compared with the unsupplemented medium and the fermentation efficiency increased from 89 to 92.5%.