ABSTRACT
Microbial oil has been gaining considerable attention from researchers recently as renewable and ecofriendly oil and its potential as feedstock for food industry and biodiesel industry. In this context, we have earlier demonstrated production of microbial oil and exopolysaccharide (EPS) from the yeast Sporidiobolus pararoseus JD-2. In this study, we explored increasing its production by optimizing the culture condition and nutrition. As expected, culture temperature and dissolved oxygen (DO) are the contributing factors for co-producing microbial oil and EPS, in which 28? and lower quantum (i.e., 30 mL/500 mL) show the best conditions in shake-flasks fermentation. By contrast, the initial pH from 4 to 8 has no obvious effect on producing microbial oil and EPS. In addition, the culture nutrition (i.e., carbon/nitrogen source) were also discussed, and indicating that 20 g/L of corn steep liquor and 60 g/L of glucose are beneficial to produce microbial oil and EPS (i.e., 34.1±1.2 g/L and 11.5±0.2 g/L, respectively). Meanwhile, the residue glucose should be maintained at 20 g/L, in which the highest production of microbial oil and EPS was obtained (i.e., 34.6±1.7 g/L and 11.7±0.8 g/L, respectively). The biomass, microbial oil and EPS were further increased during optimizing the DO level, which reached to 67.8±2.1 g/L, 34.7±0.6 g/L and 11.8±0.5 g/L during maintaining DO level at 20-30%, respectively. The results suggest that appropriate culture condition and nutrition considerably improve the fermentation performance of S. pararoseus JD-2 and significantly increase co-production of microbial oil and EPS (by 11.2 and 8.3%, respectively) compared to the un-optimized fermentation.
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES: Patients with Type I neurofibromatosis scoliosis with intra-canal rib head protrusion are extremely rare. Current knowledge regarding the diagnosis and treatment for this situation are insufficient. The purpose of this study is to share our experience in the diagnosis and surgical treatments for such unique deformities. METHODS: Six patients with Type I neurofibromatosis scoliosis with rib head dislocation into the spinal canal were diagnosed at our institution. Posterior instrumentation and spinal fusion without intra-canal rib head resection via a posterior-only approach was performed for deformity correction and rib head extraction. The efficacy and outcomes of the surgery were evaluated by measurements before, immediately and 24 months after the surgery using the following parameters: coronal spinal Cobb angle, apex rotation and kyphosis of the spine and the intra-canal rib head position. Post-operative complications, surgery time and blood loss were also evaluated. RESULTS: Patients were followed up for at least 24 months post-operatively. The three dimensional spinal deformity was significantly improved and the intra-canal rib head was significantly extracted from the canal immediately after the surgery. At follow-up 24 months after surgery, solid fusions were achieved along the fusion segments, and the deformity corrections and rib head positions were well maintained. There were no surgery-related complications any time after the surgery. CONCLUSIONS: Systematic examinations are needed to identify patients with Type I neurofibromatosis scoliosis with rib head dislocation into the canal who can be treated by posterior-only spinal fusion without rib head resection. .