High cell density fed-batch cultivation of Escherichia coli using exponential feeding combined with pH-stat.

A new feeding strategy in fed-batch culture, exponential feeding combined with pH-stat is suggested to avoid the accumulation of substrate in culture broth. Exponential feeding was stopped whenever a predetermined amount of limiting substrate was supplied and then pH change was observed. When pH rose above an upper limit due to the depletion of substrate, feeding was restarted. With this feeding strategy, recombinant Escherichia coli could be grown to 101 g/l by controlling the specific growth rate at 0.1 h(-1).