ABSTRACT
The unique properties of bacterial cellulose (BC) make it of great interest for numerous branches of industry. Nevertheless, the high cost of the dedicated, microbiological medium used for BC production significantly hinders possibility of widespread use. Searching for an alternative, we turned our attention to potato tuber juice (PJ), a major waste product of the potato starch industry. We verified the possibility of using PJ as a cost-effective, ecological-friendly medium that yielded BC with properties equivalent to those from conventional commercial Hestrin-Schramm medium. The BC yield from PJ medium (>4 g/L) was comparable, despite the lack of any pre-treatment. Likewise, the macro- and microstructure, physicochemical parameters, and chemical composition showed no significant differences between PJ and control BC. Importantly, BC obtained from PJ was not cytotoxic against fibroblast cell line L929 in vitro and did not contain any hard-to-remove impurities. These are very important aspects from an application standpoint, particularly in biomedicine. Therefore, we conclude that using PJ for BC biosynthesis is a path towards significant valorization of an environmentally problematic waste product of the starch industry and can help ultimately lower BC production costs.
Highlights
Potato juice (PJ) was used as a culture medium for cellulose-synthesizing bacteria.
PJ was suitable as source of nutrients and did not required any pre-treatment.
Yield of BC from PJ was equivalent to that obtained from conventional HS.
PJ-BC did not differ from conventionally produced HS-BC in terms of its properties.
PJ-BC can be used in the same applications as commercially produced BC.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
