Morphological and rheological properties of culture broth of Cephalosporium acremonium M25

Cephalosporium acremonium is a filamentous microorganism producing cephalosporin C. The morphological differentiation of C. acremonium in submerged culture is closely related with the rheological properties of culture broth and production of cephalosporin C. In this study, the rheological and morphological properties of culture broth of C. acremonium were investigated. In the seed broths of shake-flask and fermenter culture, the Herschel-Berkley equation was in excellent agreement with experimental results in the whole range of shear rate. In the seed broths of shake-flask culture, morphological differentiation into arthrospores affected to changes of apparent viscosity. But results in the fermenter culture, morphological factors such as mean hyphal thickness and the number of tips gave more effect on changes of apparent vitacosity than differentiation into arthrospores. Overall, it suggested that the morphological parameters measured by image analysis can be used as a good parameter to indicate the rheological properties of culture broth of C. acremonium M25.