Bioconversion of α-chitin into N-acetyl-glucosamine using chitinases produced by marine-derived Aeromonas caviae isolates.

N-Acetyl-D-glucosamine (GlcNAc) is a monosaccharide with great application potential in the food, cosmetic, pharmaceutical, and biomaterial areas. GlcNAc is currently produced by chemical hydrolysis of chitin, but the current processes are environmentally unfriendly, have low yield and high cost. This study demonstrates the potential to produce GlcNAc from α-chitin using chitinases of ten marine-derived Aeromonas isolates as a sustainable alternative to the current chemical process. The isolates were characterized as Aeromonas caviae by multilocus sequence analysis (MLSA) using six housekeeping genes (gltA, groL, gyrB, metG, ppsA, and recA), not presented the virulence genes verified (alt, act, ast, ahh1, aer, aerA, hlyA, ascV and ascFG), but showed hemolytic activity on blood agar. GlcNAc was produced at 37 °C, pH 5.0, 2% (w/v) colloidal chitin and crude chitinase extracts (0.5 U mL-1) by all the isolates with yields from 14 to 85% at 6 h, 17-89% at 12 h and 19-93% after 24 h. The highest yield of GlcNAc was observed by A. caviae CH129 (93%). This study demonstrates one of the most efficient chitin enzymatic hydrolysis procedures and A. caviae isolates with great potential for chitinases expression and GlcNAc production.