From rotten grapes to industrial exploitation: Komagataeibacter europaeus SGP37, a micro-factory for macroscale production of bacterial nanocellulose

Bacterial nanocellulose (BNC), being ultrapure and unique in its properties, is a booming and ageless precursor of several breakthrough technologies of materials sciences; however, its low yield and high cost has created a challenge for its usage at industrial level. Herein, we report a novel, high yielding bacterial cell factory Komagataeibacter europaeus SGP37, isolated from rotten grapes, for the production of high quality and value added BNC. The strain was kinetically analyzed to evaluate BNC production under different physiological conditions and had demonstrated the production of 9.98 +/- 0.24 g L-1 BNC at the expense of 12.08 +/- 1.94 g L-1 sugar following 2 weeks of cultivation, thus having the conversion yield of 0.82 g BNC/g sugar which seems to be the maximum reported yield so far. The analysis of produced pellicle using FTIR, C-13 CP MAS NMR, FE-SEM, XRD and TGA had shown similar structural, morphological and chemical characteristics with that of bacterial nanocellulose. Thus, K. europaeus SGP37 appears to be a potential strain and may offer a promising platform for industrial scale production of nanocelluloses. (C) 2016 Elsevier E.V. All rights reserved.