Effect of culture conditions and kinetic studies on extracellular tannase production by Lactobacillus plantarum MTCC 1407

Production of tannase and microbial biomass by Lactobacillus plantarum MTCC 1407 was studied in submerged batch fermentation. The tannase production was performed in different media compositions maintaining the fermentation conditions constant at 30°C, initial pH 5.5 and agitation speed at 120 rpm. Maximum tannase activity of 5.22 U mL-l was obtained at 24 h in M3 medium containing the following composition (g L-l): tannic acid, 10; glucose, 1; NH ₄Cl, 3; MgSO ₄.7H ₂O, 2; KH ₂PO ₄, 0.5; K ₂HPO ₄, 0.5; and CaCl ₂, l. The medium optimization studies show that the tannic acid (1% w/v) as inducer along with glucose (0.1% w/v) as carbon source gave maximum tannase activity. Unstructured kinetic models, namely, logistic model for cell growth and Luedeking-Piret model for tannase production, were used to predict the fermentation kinetics. The estimated values of the kinetic model parameters, α and β for tannase production indicated that the tannase production by L. plantarum was growth associated.