Antibacterial action of acetic acid soluble material isolated from Mucor rouxii and its application onto textile.

Acetic acid soluble material (AcSM) is a chitosan-rich fraction isolated from the fungal cell wall materials. The final step in the traditional production of fungal chitosan is the separation of chitosan from the cell wall AcSM via raising the pH to 9-10 followed by centrifugation. This step results in further undesirable economic and environmental effects. The goal of this paper is to avoid that by investigating the antimicrobial effect of the whole AcSM from Mucor rouxii DSM-1191 cell wall and its application on cotton fabrics. The treated fabrics were characterized through monitoring the textile physical properties and for the antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli and Micrococcus luteus. Results showed that Mucor rouxii DSM-1191 has excellent potentials to be used for cell wall AcSM production on industrial scale with a maximum content of 40% in dry mycelia. The obtained results indicated that the physical properties of the treated fabrics, as well as the antibacterial activity, were improved after treatment with fungal AcSM.