RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Potato juice, a starch industry waste, as a cost-effective medium for the biosynthesis of bacterial cellulose JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 2021.07.15.452442 DO 10.1101/2021.07.15.452442 A1 Daria Ciecholewska-Juśko A1 Michał Broda A1 Anna Żywicka A1 Daniel Styburski A1 Peter Sobolewski A1 Krzysztof Gorący A1 Paweł Migdał A1 Adam Junka A1 Karol Fijałkowski YR 2021 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/07/15/2021.07.15.452442.abstract AB 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.HighlightsPotato 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 StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.