Cultivation characteristics and gene expression profiles of Aspergillus oryzae by membrane-surface liquid culture, shaking-flask culture, and agar-plate culture

We cultivated a filamentous fungus, Aspergillus oryzae IAM 2706 by three different cultivation methods, i.e., shaking-flask culture (SFC), agar-plate culture (APC), and membrane-surface liquid culture (MSLC), to elucidate the differences of its behaviors by different cultivation methods under the same media, by measuring the growth, secretion of proteases and α-amylase, secreted protein level, and gene transcriptional profile by the DNA microarray analysis. The protease activities detected by MSLC and APC were much higher than that by SFC, using both modified Czapek–Dox (mCD) and dextrin–peptone–yeast extract (DPY) media. The α-amylase activity was detected in MSLC and APC in a much larger extent than that in SFC when DPY medium was used. On the basis of SDS–PAGE analyses and N-terminal amino acid sequences, 6 proteins were identified in the supernatants of the culture broths using DPY medium, among which oryzin (alkaline protease) and α-amylase were detected at a much higher extent for APC and MSLC than those for SFC while only oryzin was detected in mCD medium, in accordance with the activity measurements. A microarray analysis for the fungi cultivated by SFC, APC, and MSLC using mCD medium was carried out to elucidate the differences in the gene transcriptional profile by the cultivation methods. The gene transcriptional profile obtained for the MSLC sample showed a similar tendency to the APC sample while it was quite different from that for the SFC sample. Most of the genes specifically transcribed in the MSLC sample versus those in the SFC sample with a 10-fold up-regulation or higher were unknown or predicted proteins. However, transcription of oryzin gene was only slightly up-regulated in the MSLC sample and that of α-amylase gene, slightly down-regulated.