Bio-prospecting of Fruits Waste for Exopolysaccharide Production by Bacteria

Abstract

Exopolysaccharides (EPS) are secondary metabolites which are produced by organisms utilizing various carbon sources. They can be found in microorganisms, plants, and animals. EPS are able to perform different fundamental biological functions. There is large amount of carbon consumption required for production of EPS, which makes the production process costly. However, cheaper alternative substrates are there, which may lead to higher EPS production. A large amount of wastes is produced by food industry every year. Management of such waste is a critical issue for food industries. Because of their high organic water content, disposal of such waste has a notable problem both in terms of costs and environmental pollution. Normally disposal of such waste is done in traditional ways, such as land filling and composting; it is used as low quality animal feed, incineration and land spreading. Dum** of these wastes can have several adverse effects like it may produce greenhouse gases. It is one of the source of secondary pollution, it emits foul smell, such waste is easily susceptible to microbial attack, and the process like land spreading results in contamination of underground water table due to its runoff in rainy seasons; landfills and land spreading create breeding grounds for many human pathogens which can be a reason of epidemics, and thus causing negative impact on human health. The industries experience losses as these wastes require pre-treatment and transportation costs for dum** into landfills, which is costly. Generally it is believed that such waste can be used as biofertilizer or as fodder for cattle. But all of these wastes cannot be always used as fodder or biofertilizer due to high fibre content, however, it is observed that these waste can easily be utilized by microbes as a source of energy and metabolism, thus being useful in producing secondary metabolites like EPS. Unpleasant effects of agro-industrial wastes can be handled with the help of environmental biotechnology, which is an emerging field nowadays. The use of agro-industrial wastes for production of valuable bio-products can minimize various environmental hazards. For these reasons, such wastes may offer probable solutions to the actual need of a sustainable development which would accomplish the increasing demand of energy which is required for the production of EPS and would lower the overall cost of the production at higher level.