ORIGINAL ARTICLE Biosurfactant production by AL 1.1, a Bacillus licheniformis strain isolated from Antarctica: production, chemical characterization and properties Jonathan Coronel-León & Guillermo de Grau & Ariadna Grau-Campistany & Maribel Farfan & Francesc Rabanal & Angels Manresa & Ana María Marqués Received: 25 November 2014 /Accepted: 20 January 2015 /Published online: 5 March 2015 # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg and the University of Milan 2015 Abstract Biosurfactants are of great interest due to the de- mand for natural products with low toxicity. Nevertheless, their production is not competitive when cost is a limiting factor. Strain AL 1.1, isolated on Deception Island (Antarcti- ca), identified as Bacillus licheniformis , produced lipopeptides when grown using a variety of carbohydrates. Biosurfactant production, but not growth, was optimal at 30 °C. The culture conditions and medium composition dic- tated biosurfactant production. Basic optimization of culture and extraction parameters gave a production yiels of 860 mg/ L purified extract in 24 h. The purified biosurfactant yielded a mixture of lipopeptide homologues, with molecular weights between 1006 and 1034. The peptide moiety consists of glu- tamine as the N-terminal amino acid, two leucines, valine, aspartic, leucine and isoleucine as the C-terminal amino acid. The lipid moiety contains a mixture of β-hydroxy fatty acids ranging in size from C 14 to C 16 . These results indicate a sim- ilarity with lichenysin groups A, D or G. The organic extract reduced surface tension to 28.5 mN/m and achieved a critical micelle concentration of 15 mg/L. This highly effective and efficient behavior characterized the product as a powerful sur- factant. Its stability under a wide pH range, high temperatures and variable concentrations of salt, as well as its emulsifying properties, suggest potential application in cosmetic industrial processes. Keywords Biosurfactant . Lipopeptide . Bacillus licheniformis . Surface tension . Cosmetic Introduction Although many bacterial surfactants have been reported in recent decades, and their production, structure and properties have been studied extensively, there is still a demand for new biosurfactants (BS) with improved characteristics. The search for new microorganisms able to produce compounds with industrial or medical application has led to the study of sam- ples collected in unique environments. Strain AL 1.1, isolated from geothermal sediments of Deception Island in the South Shetland archipelago (Antarctica), was studied for its capacity to effectively reduce the surface tension of growth culture media. BS have distinct advantages over their commercially manufactured counterparts because of their lower toxicity, biodegradability and effectiveness in a wide range of condi- tions. These favorable features make BS potential alternatives to chemically synthesized surfactants in a variety of applica- tions. In recent decades, BS have become relevant in the en- vironmental field as biocontrol agents or in bioremediation as promoters of biodegradation of hydrocarbon pollutants. Prop- erties of BS, such as soaping, emulsifying, foaming and Jonathan Coronel and Guillermo de Grau contributed equally to this work. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13213-015-1045-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. J. Coronel-León : G. de Grau : M. Farfan : A. Manresa : A. M. Marqués (*) Laboratori de Microbiologia, Facultat de Farmàcia, Universitat de Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Spain e-mail: ammarques@ub.edu A. Grau-Campistany : F. Rabanal Departament de Química Orgànica, Facultat de Químiques, Universitat de Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Spain Ann Microbiol (2015) 65:2065–2078 DOI 10.1007/s13213-015-1045-x