Abstract: The fermentation system produced epothilone is complex, and the production strain is more difficult to operate, leading to difficulties in fermentation parameters measured, so far there is no reporting on Epothilone fermentation kinetics. In this paper, the batch fermentation kinetics of the epothilone B produced by Sorangium cellulosum SoF5-76 was studied in a 5 L fermentor. During the process, the temperature and pH were almost constant, 30℃, 7.4. When the fermentation finished, the dry cell weight, epothilone B production and residual glycerol could reach 3.00 g/L, 18.20 mg/L and 0.049 g/L. On the bases of Logistic and Luedking-Piret equation, the models of cell growth, epothilone B production and substrate consumption were established, and the non-line fitting was employed to model the kinetics of fermentation by software MATLAB. The results show that the kinetic models were in good agreement with the fermentation process.

Key words: Sorangium cellulosum, epothilone B, batch fermentation, kinetic models, MATLAB, non-line fitting