• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.236-243
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• 2004

Antimicrobial effect of chitosan and its oligosaccharides was examined on Vibrios sp., Edwardsiella tarda and Streptococcus sp., which are major pathogenic bacteria inducing bacterial diseases of acquacultured flounder. Chitosan oligosaccharides (COS ) were produced by enzymatic hydrolysis of chitosan in an ultrafiltration mombrane bioreactor system which was established with three membranes with different molecular weight cut-off (MWCO) 1,000, 5,000 and 10,000, and fractionated into three kinds of COS, based on their molecular weight sizes. The three kinds of COS were as follows : relatively high molecular weight COS [HMW-COS, molecular weight distribution of 7,000 to 24,000 Da〕, medium molecular weight COS 〔MMW-COS, 1,500 to 6,000 Da〕, and low molecular weight COS 〔LMW-COS, 1,000 to 1,500 Da). Chitosan and HMW-COS effectively inhibited the growths of Vibrio sp. and Streptococcus sp. and their antimicrobial activities were superior to the others with smaller molecular weights. This result suggested that antimicrobial effect of chitosan preparations extremely depend on their molecular weight sizes. Antimicrobial effect of chitosan and HMW-COS on E. tarda was improved by longer inoculation times. Scanning electron microscopy in morphological change of E. tarda treated with chitosan preparations showed that chitosan and HMW-COS bound to the cells and suppressed the growth of the cells. This observation appears to prove the fact that positive charged amines of chitosan electrostatically bind to negative charged compounds of cell walls.