Corn steep liquor Penicillin

Molasses, corn steep liquor, waste product from sugar industry, and wet milling com are used for the production of penicillin... 

The current viable process for the production of penicillin is large-scale fermentation. Large tanks of 5000 to 30,000-gal capacity are used. The penicillin is separated by solvent extraction. The mold grows best at 23 to 25°C, pH 4.5 to 5.0. The fermentation broth is made from corn steep liquor with lactose and inorganic materials added. Sterile air permits growth of the mold over a 50- to 90-hour period. 

Penicillins (4-thia-l-aza-bicyclo [3.2.0] heptanes) Corn steep liquor, lactose Penicillium chrysogenum Penicillium notatum... 

The acyl side-chain (R) varies, depending on the make up of the fermentation media. For example, corn steep liquor was used as the medium when penicillin was first mass-produced in the United States and this gave penicillin G (R=benzyl). This was due to high levels of phenylacetic acid (PhCH2C02H) present in the medium. 

Natural media are often based on corn steep liquor, malt extract or potato extract. Corn steep liquor is a by-product from the preparation of starch from maize and is particularly useful as a source of nitrogen. In the initial studies on the development of the penicillin fermentation the addition of corn steep liquor to the medium produced a significant increase in the antibiotic titre. 

Due to the special situation in the post-war era, the implementation of this endeavor was extremely difficult. With the help of a French chemist, Captain Rambaud, of the French occupation forces, a small team of scientists and engineers succeeded in producing sufficiently pure penicillin within a rather short period of time (1948). Problems of equipment were solved by using various redundant military materials, e.g. V2 missile containers as liquid vessels, self-produced fermenters stirred with the help of motors of submarines and aerated by compressors powered by motors of German Tiger tanks. The necessary pipes were obtained from a bombed Innsbruck cafe. Since corn-steep liquor was not available, yeast extract had to be used, and whey had to serve as a substitute for lactose. Even the necessary butanol for the preparation of the extractant had to be produced by installing a butanol fermentation. 

Penicillin had been originally produced in surface culture, but titers were very low. Submerged culture soon became the method of choice. By the use of strain improvement and medium modifications, such as the use of corn steep liquor as additive, the yield of penicillin was increased by 100-fold in just a few years. Much of the understanding of the physiology of P. chrysogenum, in relation to penicUlin production, was achieved by Professor Marvin Johnson and his students at the University of Wisconsin. Further clinical successes were demonstrated in both England and the United States, and finally in 1943, penicillin was used to treat those wounded in battle. 

Penicillium notatum was mixed with a by-product of maize processing, the so-called corn steep liquor . In the search for even more productive strains, hundreds of moulds were tested. In 1943, Mary Hunt (nicknamed Mouldy Mary ), a lab technician from the Northern Regional Research Laboratory, discovered the best mould on a cantaloupe (a type of melon) in the weekly market. With this fungus, the overall yield of penicillin increased around twenty-fold. By the end of 1944, it was possible to produce enough penicillin to treat 500,000 people (Fig. 5.26). 

Most A. are produced industrially from microbial cultures (see Industrial microbiology) highly productive strains of microorganisms are used for this purpose, and such strains are maintained in culture collections. Chemical synthesis of A. is also used to a small extent. As far as possible, nutrient media for industrial microbial A. production are prepared from readily available, cheap raw materials, e. g. various sugars, starch, soybean millings, corn steep liquor. The yield of penicillin G can be increased by adding phe-nylacetic acid to the medium as a precursor. As is ty-... 

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