A Carotenoid- and Poly-β-Hydroxybutyrate-Free Mutant Strain of ATCC 31461 for the Commercial Production of Gellan.

Gellan gum is a microbial exopolysaccharide, produced after aerobic fermentation using the Gram-negative bacterium strain ATCC 31461. Due to its unique structure and excellent physical characteristics, gellan gum has a broad range of applications in food, pharmaceutical, and other industries where it is used for stabilizing, emulsifying, thickening, and suspending. During the fermentative production of gellan, strain ATCC 31461 also accumulates large amounts of the metabolic by-products yellow carotenoid pigments and poly-β-hydroxybutyrate (PHB), which is decreasing the gellan production and increasing processing costs.

Screening and enzymatic activity of high-efficiency gellan lyase producing bacteria PE1.

Gellan is a widely used microbial polysaccharide and one of the more effective ways to expand its application value would be to investigate the mechanism of gellan lyase and to produce gellan oligosaccharide. In this study, efficient gellan degrading bacteria were screened. One of the strains with high efficient gellan degradation capacity was labeled PE1.