Submerged fermentation of Ginkgo biloba seeds powder using Eurotium cristatum for the development of ginkgo seeds fermented products

Background: Ginkgo biloba seeds are well known for the significant curative effects on relieving cough and asthma. However, the development of ginkgo seeds products still falls behind at present, resulting in a great waste of ginkgo seeds resource. In this work, submerged fermentation of ginkgo seeds powder using Eurotium Cristatum was studied to investigate its feasibility as a new processing method.

Results: To promote the growth of E. cristatum, the optimum fermentation medium was 80.0 g L^-1 ginkgo seeds powder with addition of 5.0 g L^-1 CaCl₂ , 4.0 g L^-1 MgSO₄ , 1.25 g L^-1 ZnSO₄ and 0.65 g L^-1 FeSO₄ . The optimum fermentation conditions were pH 5.8 ± 0.1, inoculum size 5.1 × 10⁶ CFU mL^-1 , liquid medium volume 100 mL in 250-mL Erlenmeyer flask and fermentation 4 days. Through fermentation, the production of lovastatin in fermentation broth could reach up to 32.97 ± 0.17 μg mL^-1 and the total antioxidant capacity was improved by more than two times. In addition, 40.15% of the ginkgotoxin in ginkgo seeds powder was degraded while the entire degradation of ginkgolic acids was obtained. Moreover, fermented ginkgo seeds powder suspension presented pleasant fragrances, and the activities of amylase and protease were enhanced to 11.30 ± 0.10 U mL^-1 and 23.01 ± 0.20 U mL^-1 , respectively.

Conclusions: Submerged fermentation using E. cristatum could significantly enhance the functional value and safety of ginkgo seeds powder, and had great potential to become a novel processing method for the development of ginkgo seeds fermented products. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Antioxidant ability; E. cristatum; Fermented products; Ginkgo seeds; Submerged fermentation.