Application of Plackett Burman and Box Behnken Design for the Optimization of a-glucosidase Production by Thermophillic Thermomyces dupontii

A consecutive optimization based on statistical approach was applied for a-glucosidase production by both wild and mutant T. dupontii. Plackett Burman design (PBD) with two levels was employed in order to screen the significant effect of different nutritional and physical parameters through submerged fermentation. Among all nine variables tested in PBD, incubation time, inoculum size and ammonium sulphate concentration were selected. The Box-Behnken approach was further applied for process optimization. The a-glucosidase production for both wild and mutant T.dupontii was obtained at 72 h of incubation, 1.25 mL inoculum size and 0.25% ammonium sulphate concentration with relatively 95% correlation between the experimentally predicted and observed values. The duration of maximum enzyme production in RSM was cost-saving and fast. The quadratic model was in satisfactory adjustment with the experimental data with high R2 value which describes 98.90% of response variability of the model. Moreover, the novel approach of this present work is that, consecutive optimization were applied for maximum a-glucosidase production using response surface methodology by both wild and mutant thermophillic T. dupontii. Results revealed that thermophillic mutant T. dupontii could be potential candidate for industrial applications.