Levan is an exopolysaccharide constituted by fructose units, β(2 → 6) linked, synthesized by several microorganisms during fermentation of a culture medium containing sucrose, yeast extract and mineral salts. This biopolymer has various applications as much in food area (colors and flavors fixer, thickener and stabilizer of several foods) as in pharmaceutical one (blood plasma replacement, immunomodulator, anticarcinogenic and hypocholesterolemic). The study was aimed at providing a comparative study of the production of levan from Zymomonas mobilis CCT 4494, using fermentation media sinthetic and sugarcane juice as this is considered a low cost substrate for the commercial fermentation process, due to its abundance and easy availability in Brazil. The results obtained indicated that the sugarcane juice, used as alternative culture medium, is an appropriate raw material for fermentation by Zymomonas mobilis CCT 4494 since its composition made possible the obtainment of levan yields higher or similar to the sucrose concentrations tested with the best synthetic medium.
Biopolymer; exopolysaccharide
