Optimization of protein enrichment and enhancement of nutritional quality of copra meal fermented by aspergillus oryzae as potential animal feed Supplement

• Main Author: Teh, Jillian Francesca T.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2023
• Subjects: Copra; Feeds; Aspergillus; Solid-state fermentation; Chemistry
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etdm_chem/15; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/context/etdm_chem/article/1016/viewcontent/2023_Teh_Optimization_of_Protein_Enrichment_and_Enhancement_of_Nutritional_Full_text.pdf
• Institution: De La Salle University

Copra meal (CM) is an agricultural residue added to livestock feed formulations in the Philippines. However, it is added in small amounts as it contains anti-nutritional factors, mainly lignocellulose, and has insufficient protein content that affect the growth of livestock. CM was fermented with Aspergillus oryzae in order to increase its protein content and degrade lignocellulose. The parameters of solid state fermentation were optimized in this study to obtain the highest possible level of protein enrichment and to prepare for possible future scale-up processes. Box-Behnken design under the response surface methodology (RSM) was used to optimize pH (5-7), fermentation period (48 h – 144 h) and moisture content (50%- 70%) with crude protein enrichment (%) taken as the response to the design. The optimized parameters were a fermentation period of 95.33 h, moisture content of 58.49%, and pH of 6.1. Under such conditions, the crude protein enrichment was estimated to be 534.63%. Additionally, in fermented CM, crude fiber and in-vitro protein digestibility were decreased relative to unfermented CM. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) revealed the degradation of lignocellulose while the sugar profile analysis revealed the presence of glucose in fermented CM, whereas no glucose was detected in unfermented CM. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) revealed the disruption of surface structure of CM after fermentation. Such findings suggest that the nutritional value of CM improved due to the increase in protein and the degradation of lignocellulose into simple sugars. These optimized parameters may also be considered for scaled-up production of protein-enriched CM for commercial livestock feed production. Keywords: Aspergillus oryzae, copra meal, solid state fermentation, nutritional value