Chitosan-coated manganese ferrite nanoparticles enhanced Rhodotorula toruloides carotenoid production.

The present study aims to analyze the interaction between Rhodotorula toruloides and magnetic nanoparticles and evaluate their effect on carotenoid production. The manganese ferrite nanoparticles were synthesized without chitosan (MnFeO) and chitosan coating (MnFeO-CS) by the co-precipitation method assisted by hydrothermal treatment. XRD (X-ray diffraction), Magnetometry, Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) and FTIR (Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy), are used to characterize the magnetic nanoparticles. The crystallite size of MnFeO was 16 nm for MnFeO and 20 nm for MnFeO-CS. The magnetic saturation of MnFeO-CS was lower (39.6 ± 0.6 emu/g) than the same MnFeO nanoparticles (42.7 ± 0.3 emu/g), which was attributed to the chitosan fraction presence. The MnFeO-CS FTIR spectra revealed the presence of the characteristic chitosan bands. DLS demonstrated that the average hydrodynamic diameters were 344 nm for MnFeO and 167 nm for MnFeO-CS. A kinetic study of cell immobilization performed with their precipitation with a magnet demonstrated that interaction between magnetic nanoparticles and R. toruloides was characterized by an equilibrium time of 2 h. The adsorption isotherm models (Langmuir and Freundlich) were fitted to the experimental values. The trypan blue assay was used for cell viability assessment. The carotenoid production increased to 256.2 ± 6.1 µg/g dry mass at 2.0 mg/mL MnFeO-CS. The use of MnFeO-CS to stimulate carotenoid yeast production and the magnetic separation of biomass are promising nanobiotechnological alternatives. Magnetic cell immobilization is a perspective technique for obtaining cell metabolites.