Production of Medically Important Lactic Acid by Lactobacillus Pentosus: A Biological Conversion Method

Objective: Lactic acid is one of the main components of lactated Ringer's solution and Hartmann's solution, which is mainly produced by the pharmaceutical industry for the medical purposes. But the production of lactic acid through chemical route has many disadvantages. Therefore, production of lactic acid through biological route has more advantages. Hence the present study aimed to produce lactic acid from the xylose sugar through the biological route by using novel Lactobacillus strain. Methods: Hyperactive Lactobacillus strains were isolated from the coir industry and identified using routine biochemical and molecular biology tools. Ethyl Methane Sulfonate (EMS) were used for the creation of mutation in the selected strains and cultivated under various cultivation medium. High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) was used for the quantification of individual sugars, lactic acid and acetic acid respectively. Results: Primary screening revealed that the strain L-3 showed significant amount of lactic acid under aerobic and microaerobic condition. 16S rRNA gene amplification and sequence analysis confirmed that the strain had close similarity with the Lactobacillus Pentosus. Shake flask cultivation revealed that the strain could able to produce maximum amount of lactic acid from xylose and exhibited higher cell density under control growth condition, cell growth (1.7 OD 600nm) and lactic acid (15 mM) and acetic acid (11 mm). Interestingly, the EMS treated cells of the strain produced promising amount of lactic acid (18 g/L). Conclusion: The novel strain could able to produce comparatively significant quantity of lactic acid by green synthesis method. The lactic acid produced by this method could be useful to the pharmaceutical industry for the bulk level production of medically important drugs.