3.1. Isolation and Identification of Lactiplantibacillus plantarum AC 11S
L. plantarum AC 11S, was isolated from a sample of white brined cheese, homemade on a small farm, in the village of Arda, Rodopa mountain, Bulgaria, near the border with Turkey. The strain is a part of the laboratory collection of the “Stephan Angeloff” Institute of Microbiology, BAS, Bulgaria.
The strain AC 11S was characterized as Gram-positive, catalase, and oxidase-negative rod-shaped cells’ morphology (
Figure 1 A), non-motile, non-spore-forming facultative anaerobe. It was initially identified as a mesophilic bacterium presumptive
Lactiplantobacillus plantarum by carbohydrate fermentation test with 49 carbon sources (using API 50 CHL, bioMérieux, Marcy l’Etoile, France). The accurate species affiliation was achieved by multiplex PCR (
Figure 1 B), according to Torriani et al. [
17]. With primers, targeting the
rec A gene, a PCR product 318 bp was obtained corresponding to the species
L. plantarum. This molecular method was preferred as a discriminative approach for three highly similar species from the group of
Lactiplantibacillus as reported by Toriani et al. [
17] and Georgieva et al. [
18].
3.3. Influence of pH and Temperature
Fermentation productivity is strongly influenced by the medium pH value and temperature. Although LAB can grow in a broad range of temperatures and pH levels, their growth rate and population density are affected by these factors [
12].
With the aim to determine optimum conditions for L. plantarum AC11S two series of experiments were carried out. In the first one, the initial medium pH was varied from 4.5 to 8.5 at 30 oC., and in the second set of experiments, conducted at pH 6.5, the temperature was changed from 24 to 40 oC. 100 mL LA broth was inoculated with 10% seeding culture and fermentation was carried out at appropriate temperature and pH value under anaerobic and static conditions for 24 hours.
The results of these experiments are presented in
Figure 3. As can be seen from the figure the optimum conditions for lactic acid production are pH = 6.5 and temperature of 30
oC. The influence of pH is more pronounced, especially on the cell concentration.
L. plantarum is a mesophilic bacterium, capable of growing at temperatures between 10 and 40
oC. In support of our findings, other researchers also cultivated
L. plantarum at 30
oC as an optimal temperature [
31,
32,
33,
34,
35], but there are enough investigations in which the strain was cultivated at 37
oC - see for example [
5,
6,
9].
L. plantarum possesses high acidity tolerance and can grow in pH values between 4 and 7. It is generally accepted that lactic acid production is growth growth-associated process. Anyway, during the fermentation, due to the lactic acid accumulation, the pH value of the broth decreases to about 3.0-3.5 in pH uncontrolled mode [
36,
37]. Many authors assumed that both dissociated and undissociated forms of the acid could exhibit an inhibition effect on cell growth, as the undissociated form is the stronger inhibitor. It is logical because at low pH (below pKa) the acid is mainly in undissociated form. As pointed out by Peetermans et al. [
38] other factors besides pKa, like volatility, and lipophilicity of the acid, as well as medium pH or acid concentration influence the microbial growth inhibition in the presence of weak acids. Mercier et al. [
39] investigated lactic acid fermentation with glucose as substrate in the pH range of 5.4 – 7.8. Based on experimental results the authors suggest a pH value between 6.0 and 6.5 as optimal for maximal yields for biomass and lactic acid production. W. Fu and A.P. Mathews [
9] studied the lactic acid production from lactose with
L. plantarum in the pH range of 4.0-7.0 and found optimal values for cell growth and acid production between 5.0 and 6.0. Yetiman et al. [
4] have characterized a new
L. plantarum strain isolated from
shalgam – a traditional fermented beverage. The authors investigated the cell growth at different pH values (2, 3, 4, 5, and 7) at two temperatures – 30 and 37
oC. Maximum cell density was achieved at pH = 7.0 for both temperatures, but the lag phase was shorter, and the specific growth rate was higher at 37
oC. The same behavior was observed in the presence of different concentrations of bile salts. It is worth mentioning that despite a longer lag phase and lower specific growth rate the final cell densities were higher at 30
oC, especially in the presence of bile salts.
3.5. Modeling of Cell Growth, Substrate Consumption, and Product Accumulation
As can be seen in
Figure 5 (growth, substrate, and product for 11 g/L) no cell death was observed during the process. The same hold and for others initial substrate concentrations.
Therefore, in the eq. 1 the second term was omitted as well as the last term in eq. 4 and the set of differential equations describing the process becomes:
with initial conditions t = 0, X = X
0, S = S
0, P = P
0.
With the aim of finding the best expression for specific biomass growth rate, all kinetic models listed in
Table 1, as well as the modified logistic and Gompertz equations were used.
An algorithm for simultaneously solving the model equations describing the fermentation process at different initial substrate concentrations was developed.
Using this algorithm, own experimental data were used to identify the model parameters by least square function minimization using MATLAB 2013A software.
For this purpose, the experimental data were processed by minimization procedure of the target function Q, being the sum of the squares of the differences between the measured biomass, substrate, and lactic acid concentrations and the model values:
where
i is the number of constants in each equation for
μ, and
j is the number of experimental points.
The attempt to solve the model with the data for all 5 substrate concentrations wasn’t very successful, the discrepancies between model and experimental data were large and the Q function value was too big.
Analyzing the data for product accumulation in
Figure 4 it can be concluded that while at 11 g/L substrate concentration, the conversion is almost complete, while increasing the substrate concentration from 22 to 55 g/L leads to strong inhibition of the process and the conversion drops up to about 30%. It was decided to solve the model for 11 g/L separately, using an expression for
μ without any additional terms for substrate and product inhibition. Four equations were used – the Monod equation, Verhulst equation, modified logistic, and modified Gompertz equations.
The results are presented in
Figure 6 and the values of the model’s parameters are given in
Table 2. All four equations described very well the biomass growth as Gompertz and Verhulst’s equations gave the best fit. Solving together the system for biomass growth, substrate consumption, and product formation, however, the results were a little bit different – the best fit was obtained with the Verhulst equation, while the value of the Q function was higher in case of the Gompertz equation and the discrepancies between model and experimental data are high for substrate and product. The obtained values for maximum cell concentration (
Xmax and
A) are very close, as well as some other model parameters. A very short lag phase was observed and modified Gompertz and logistic models predict - 3-4 h. From the values of the parameters α and β it is evident that the production of lactic acid with
L. plantarum AC 11S is related to biomass growth and practically there is no lactic acid production during the stationary phase.
For the rest of the experimental data (from 22 to 55 g/L initial substrate concentration) the mathematical model was solved with all equations that include different types of inhibition in the expressions for specific growth rate
μ listed in
Table 1. Calculated values of model parameters from simultaneous solution for all 4 initial substrate concentrations are listed in
Table 3 and presented in
Figure 7.
One can see that the best fit (lowest Q value) was obtained with the model proposed by Altıok [
20]. The models of Verhulst [
19], and Aiba [
21] also very well described the growth and production kinetics.
None of both models including substrate inhibition produce good agreement with experimental data. The same observation was made also by Altıok et al. [
20]. Åkerberg et al. [
23] also reported that the substrate inhibition was very small compared to the product one.
The values of the yield coefficients YX/S and YP/S are of the same magnitude except those obtained by the Monod-Jerusalimsky model. The ratio between values of the parameters α and β is also high which confirms that product formation is growth-related in this concentration range.
Analyzing the literature data, it is obvious that kinetics constant values are not only strain and substrate specific but also depend on other factors like temperature, pH, media composition, etc. Some of the published data for values of maximal growth rate μ are summarized in
Table 4.
Because other authors have solved models separately for each initial substrate concentration, similar calculations were made with the proposed model (eq. 9). Some of the calculated values are presented in
Table 5. Experimental values of α were calculated from experimental data for biomass and product according to the equation 11:
Both mean values are very close to the value predicted by the model solving all data for different substrate concentrations simultaneously.