Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci (2017) 6(3): 110-118 110 Original Research Article https://doi.org/10.20546/ijcmas.2017.603.012 Production of α-L-Rhamnosidase from Aspergillus flavus: Optimization of Submerged Culture Conditions by Taguchi DOE Methodology Poonam Yadav 1 *, Anil Kumar Chauhan 1 , Mohammed A. Al-Sebaeai 1 and Suman Yadav 2 1 Centre of Food Science and Technology, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi-221005, India 2 Department of Microbiology, SGPGIMS, Lucknow-226014, India *Corresponding author ABSTRACT Introduction The biotechnological potential of microbial enzymes has drawn a great deal of attention from various researchers worldwide, as they are likely to be biological catalysts in a variety of industrial processes, high production yields, easy genetic manipulation, provide regular production due to independent of geographical condition, fast growth of microorganism in inexpensive media, more convenient and safer protection methods. Among microbial enzymes, α-L- rhamnosidase [E.C.3.2.1.40] which cleaves terminal α-L-rhamnose from a large number of natural glycosides includes mainly naringin, rutin, hesperidin quercitrinand terpenyl glycosides (Yadav et al., 2010). This enzyme is a part of an enzyme complex called naringinase. Naringinase has two subunits: α- L-rhamnosidase which hydrolyzenaringin to rhamnose and prunin, which are further converted into glucose and naringenin by another subunit β-D-glucosidase [EC.3.2.1.21] (Puri et al., 2005). This enzyme has been reported in literature from various International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 6 Number 3 (2017) pp. 110-118 Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com Keywords α-L-rhamnosidase, DOE (Design of Experiment), Bitterness, Citrus fruit juice, Narigin. Accepted: 08 February 2017 Available Online: 10 March 2017 Article Info The enzyme α-L-rhamnosidase [E.C.3.2.1.40] specifically cleaves terminal α-L-rhamnose from a large number of natural products containing glycosides. This property provides this enzyme an important biotechnological application including removal of bitterness from citrus fruit juices, enhancement of grape wine aroma, removal of hesperidin crystals from orange juices, tomato pulp digestion and also help in conversion of clinical important steroids. In this study, production of α-L-rhamnosidase in submerged state fermentation from Aspergillus flavus was optimized using Taguchi DOE methodology. This statistical method provide the study of interaction of a large number of factors at different levels settings with a small number of experimental runs which leads to considerable economy in time and cost for the process optimization. The objective of this research was to determine the significant parameters for the production of α-L-rhamnosidase by Aspergillus flavus in submerged fermentation. Five factors Viz. inducer concentration (naringin), incubation days, temperature, pH and metal ion at two levels were selected with orthogonal array layout of L16 (2 5 ). The experimental result indicate that inducer concentration (0.5% naringin), incubation days (7), temperature (28 0 C), and pH (6.0) were the important factors for α-L-rhamnosidase production by Aspergillus flavus in submerged state fermentation at the optimum levels.