The Influence of Mineral Ions on the Microbial Production and Molecular Weight of Hyaluronic Acid

This study aimed to evaluate the influence of the culture medium supplementation with mineral ions, focusing on the growth of Streptococcus zooepidemicus as well as on the production and average molecular weight (MW) of hyaluronic acid (HA). The ions were investigated in terms of individual absence from the totally supplemented medium (C+) or individual presence in the non-supplemented medium (C−), where C+ and C− were used as controls. Differences between the effects were analyzed using the Tukey's test at p < 0.05. The adopted criteria considered required the ions, whose individual absence attained at 80% or less of the C+ and their individual presence was 20% or more than the C−. The supplementation was either inhibitory or acted in synergy with other ions, when the individual absence or presence was 20% higher than C+ or 20% lower than C−, respectively. Results showed that the effects of C+ or C− were equal for both the production of HA and its yield from glucose. However, C+ showed to be beneficial to cell growth while the individual absence of Na+ was beneficial to the production of HA. The highest MW of HA (7.4 × 107 Da) was observed in the individual presence of Na+ in spite of the lowest HA concentration (0.65 g.L−1). These results suggest that the quality of HA can be modulated through the mineral ion supplementation.