Influência de parâmetros operacionais, fontes protéicas e substratos energéticos sobre o cultivo de Bacillus thuringiensis var. israelensis

Abstract

The entomopathogenic bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis var. israelensis produces a crystal protein formed by endotoxins. These endotoxins are used in the formulation of biolarvicides effective for the control of diptera, which represent a problem for human health. In this work, the influence of nitrogen sources, energetic substrates, temperature, and pH on the cell growth, spore formation, and the expression of endotoxins by B. thuringiensis var. israelensis was studied in shake-flask and bioreactor experiments. Low-cost nitrogen sources were studied for the substitution of laboratory yeast extract. The best results for cell growth, spore formation and lethality of Culex quinquefasciatus larvae were obtained in bench bioreactor with medium containing 12 g/L of the bulk yeast extract Prodex (BYE) or 20 g/L of soy bran (SB), with maximum oxygen uptake rate values (OUR) of 58.1 and 53.3 mmolO2/L/h, maximum cell concentration of 12 g/L, spore counting of 3.1012 and 6.1012 spores/mL, and medium lethal concentration (LC50) of 0.21 and 0.45 ppm, respectively. In this comparison, BYE, which is much cheaper than laboratory yeast extract, was preferred as a protein source than soy bran because it is completely soluble, which could be an advantage in large-scale processing. With respect to the energetic substrates evaluated (glucose, sucrose and lactose), glucose, in concentrations of 10 and 20 g/L, led to the most significant results for respiration (maximum OUR approximately 60 mmolO2/L/h for both conditions), cell growth (maximum X = 8.2 and 12 g/L, respectively), and spore counting (1012 spores/mL in 26 and 28 hours, approximately). In media containing glucose or sucrose, the presence of toxins of 26, 70, and 128 kDa was observed. Despite the inferior cell growth observed, sucrose (10 g/L), a relatively low-cost carbohydrate in Brazil, could be used as a substrate for Bti cultivation since the endotoxins studied were expressed. With lactose, no significant result was found. The temperature of the medium exerts a major influence on the cultivation of Bti. At 27 and 30ºC, the higher values for the maximum OUR (88.1 and 66.1 mmolO2/L/h), X (13 g/L for both conditions) and spore counting (8 and 7.1010 spores/mL) were measured. The more intense expression for proteins of 70 and 26 kDa, in mediu containing BYE (12 g/L) and glucose (20 g/L), were also observed at these temperatures. The temperature of 27ºC can be considered as a better temperature for this process since oxygen supply would be facilitated at this condition. The low pH observed when the cultivation was performed without pH control or with pH kept constant at 5.5 led to decreasing values of biomass concentration which reached 9.5 g/L. When the pH was controlled in 6.2 and 7.0 or varied from 7.0 to 5.5, the maximum X was measured as 12 g/L. Despite such a difference, spore counting was similar in all experiments: 1012 spores/mL in approximately 30 hours of cultivation. A better expression of endotoxins of 26, 70, and 128 kDa was detected when the pH was kept close to neutral values.