The influence of fermentation condition on production and molecular mass of EPS produced by Streptococcus thermophilus 05-34 in milk-based medium.

The yield of exopolysaccharide (EPS) produced by Streptococcus thermophilus 05-34 reached up to 250 mg/L under the optimal fermentation condition, which was 4.2-fold higher than that produced under the non-optimal fermentation condition. Structure analysis showed that EPS produced under the optimal fermentation condition was composed of galactose and glucose in a molar ratio of 1.0:0.8. This EPS was with a molecular mass of 4.7×10(5) Da, which was increased by 9 times compared with that in the non-optimal fermentation condition, while monosaccharide composition did not change. Furthermore, real-time quantitative PCR showed that the transcription level of epsC, which is responsible for chain-length determination, was up-regulated by 2.7-fold, suggesting that the increased molecular mass of EPS was resulted from improving polymerization degree of monosaccharide. These findings demonstrated that the optimized fermentation condition can improve EPS molecular mass, and may consequently modify the rheological properties of EPS.