Morphology and clavulanic acid production of Streptomyces clavuligerus: Effect of stirrer speed in batch fermentations.

Streptomyces clavuligerus ATCC 20764 was grown from spore-inocuia on a glycerol, malt extract, bacteriological peptone medium in 5-L batch fermentations at 490, 990, and 1300 rpm. Dry cell weights, clavulanic acid production, and the morphological parameters main hyphal length, total hyphal length, number of tips, and hyphal growth unit were measured. Growth and productivity were hardly dependent on stirrer speed. After early growth fragmentation of long, highly branched mycelia to shorter, less branched fragments occurred. This was followed by regrowth and, at 1300 rpm, a second fragmentation phase. The effect of increasing stirrer speed was to accelerate the initial fragmentation phase. It was clearly possible to obtain the same biomass concentration and clavulanic acid liter, with different morphologies depending on stirrer speed. This shows that for this fermentation at least there is no direct link between morphology and productivity and, hence, that it might be possible to manipulate them independently to improve fermentor performance.