Abstract

BAUHINIA SEED OIL, A NOVEL SUBSTRATE FOR SOPHOROLIPID PRODUCTION

Priti Darne, Mihir Mehta, Parul Dubey, Asmita Prabhune*

ABSTRACT

The seeds of Bauhinia racemosa have 80% of C-18 fatty acids present in them, majority of which is linoleic acid followed by oleic acid and a variety of other oils. We have successfully synthesized sophorolipid by using Bauhinia racemosa seed oil as a novel substrate. Upon supplementing the yeast Candida bombicola (ATCC 22214) with 1% extracted seed oil and 10% glucose, 1.1 g/100 mL of sophorolipid was synthesized during fermentation for seven days. Physicochemical and analytical characterization techniques like oil displacement, emulsification index, thin layer chromatography (TLC), matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization-mass spectroscopy (MALDI-MS) revealed the biotransformation of oil to sophorolipid with its molecular mass being in the range of 600-700 Da. Tensiometric studies showed that the surface tension of water is reduced from about 72 mN/m to 33.35mN/m with a very low critical micelle concentration (CMC) of 60 mg/L. These findings are at par with other sophorolipids synthesized using various lipidic substrates. Moreover these sophorolipids are synthesized from natural, unutilized plant sources using green technique contributing towards development of value added products.

Keywords: Bauhinia racemosa, Candida bombicola ATCC 22214, sophorolipid, surface tension, CMC, MALDI-MS.