peptone estimation - (Oct/25/2005 )

Dear members,
I wish to know peptone degradation in a bioreactor. Bacteria is used for degrdation. How to estimate residual peptone at each time interval.Protease enzyme is also produced which is present along with the degraded peptone, making difficult to estimate peptone.Please suggest me a suitable procedure
Regards,
senthil

Hiya,

Recently I have been wondering about how to make such a estimation for a batch process. The method I opted for was to take samples (10mL) and then 0.2uM filter them thus removing cells (this also was required due to organism involved, (no open manipulations...)). The 10mLs were then chilled on ice, until all the samples were collected. Then each 10mL sample was innoculated, and the optical densities recorded over about 10hrs.

A crude method I know, early samples were still in log growth at 10hrs and the late samples barley grew at all. We also noted a change in the "colour" between each sample.... the brown/straw colour getting lighter in the later samples.

I hope this helps