ENHANCED PRODUCTION OF PRODIGIOSIN FROM Serratia marcescens UCP 1549 USING VARIOUS ENVIROMENTAL CONDITIONS

Strain of Serratia marcescens UCP 1549 isolated from a semi-arid soil of the Federal University Technology Minna, Nigeria produced the red pigment prodigiosin. Prodigiosin is a promising drug due to its reported antifungal, immuno suppressive and anti-proliferative activities. The objective of this work was to identify a suitable medium to simultaneously enhance S. marcescens growth and pigment produced using different composed substrate S. marcescens produced the highest level of prodigiosin (25.10 mg/ml) and (8.43 mg/ml) at 72 hours of cultivation using 50 ml peanut seed broth and sesame seed broth with maltose (0.5%) at 250C Neutral pH was observed to give the optimal pigment and biomass production (25.10 μg/l) and (2.4 g/l).Media with high acidic (pH 2.0-4.0) and high alkaline (pH 10.0-13.0) did not support pigment and biomass production. Both pigment and biomass showed a direct relationship, both in their increase as well as decrease, in response to variations in pH agitation was at 150 rpm. Fatty acid and maltose play a role in the enhanced cell growth and prodigiosin production. The purified pigment extracted from the biomass when analyzed by mass spectrophotometry showed the expected molecular weight of 321Da corresponding to prodigiosin. This study has successfully shown that, peanut seed broth at temperature of 250C, pH 7 and 150 rpm was found to be optimal in enhancing production of high yield of