Determination of cell mass and polymyxin using multi-wavelength fluorescence

Multi-wavelength fluorescence was applied for on-line monitoring of cell mass and the antibiotic polymyxin B in Bacillus polymyxa cultivations. By varying the phosphate and nitrogen content of the medium different polymyxin–cell mass ratios could be obtained. Using this strategy, it was possible to investigate if multi-wavelength fluorescence is able to give independent prediction of the two parameters.Partial least square (PLS) regression was applied to establish mathematical relationships between off-line determined cell mass and polymyxin concentrations and on-line collected fluorescence data. For polymyxin one universal PLS model, with a correlation of 0.95 and a root mean square error of cross validation (RMSECV) of 35 mg l−1, could be constructed. However, correlation between fluorescence and cell mass dry weight could not be established including data from all three types of cultivations. For data from each type of cultivation, separate models with high correlation and low RMSECV values were built. A large variation in cellular composition as a result of the different levels of nitrogen and phosphorus in the cultivations was the probable reason to the necessity of building three models.The results of the present investigation indicate that production of polymyxin is concomitantly regulated by phosphate and nitrogen as the highest polymyxin yield on cell mass, 0.17 ± 0.01 g g−1, was reached in the cultivations where both nitrogen and phosphate concentrations were kept low.