A novel knotted cotton-thread carrier: its potential use in achieving the biomass renewal of Phanerochaete chrysosporium in an immobilized growth system

In order to achieve an innovative strategy to renew the biomass of Phanerochaete chrysosporium in an immobilized growth system which can maintain white-rot fungi biomass, a novel knotted cotton-thread carrier was designed and made. By using a high-speed stirring apparatus under the conditions of 1400 r/min stirring speed for 6 min, mycelia immobilized on the knotted cotton-thread carriers were exfoliated completely and homogenized to a proper size. Furthermore, the homogenized mycelia from the immobilized mycelia can resume their growth on the knotted cotton-thread carriers in agitated flask cultures. The average regrowth biomass on the new carriers and the reused carriers was 0.0171 g/carrier and 0.0314 g/carrier, respectively. It proves that the knotted cotton-thread carrier performs perfectly in homogening the immobilized mycelia to achieve the biomass renewal of P. chrysosporium in an immobilized growth system.