Indian Journal of Science and Technology

Abstract

Production of fusaric acid was maximized by employing response surface methodology with two level factorial design involving potato infusion (X1) and sucrose (X2) as variables, after optimizing the carbon and nitrogen source. The pvalue for each factor was <0.05 suggesting that these factors have significant effect on the production of fusaric acid. The optimized medium consisted 100 g/l potato infusion, 10 g/l sucrose for the production of 12.8 mg/l fusaric acid. Besides, different process parameters like pH and inoculums size were also standardized. Optimum pH and inoculums size were found to be 6.5 and 6 mm agar plug respectively. This is the first report of using RSM (Response Surface Methodology) for optimizing a medium for FA production. This technique can be used in increasing FA production at industrial scale for commercial product without augmentation of costly additives.
Keywords: Fusaric acid; Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. lycopersici; response surface methodology.