title: Welan gum: microbial production, characterization, and applications.
abstract: Microbial exopolysaccharides are of high molecular weight, environment friendly valuable natural polymers, having applications in diverse areas such as food industry, pharmaceutical industry, cement systems and cosmetics industries. Welan gum, a microbial product holds an important place among the exopolysaccharides due to its novel properties and potential applications. The biopolymer welan gum is synthesized by the fermentation process mainly by the Alcaligenes sp., and is composed of polymer of tetrasaccharide backbone chain containing l-mannose, l-rhamnose, d-glucose, and d-glucuronic acid. It acts as a thickening, suspending, binding, emulsifying, stabilizing and viscosifying agent. It has important commercial applications in the cement systems. This review is primarily focused on the microbial production, purification, recovery, and the characterization based on the available published literature on the welan gum. Besides this, the biosynthesis and the various process factors affecting the production as well as properties of welan gum and its various applications have also been addressed.
authors: Biotechnology Research Laboratory, Department of Food Engineering and Technology, Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering and Technology, Longowal 148106, Punjab, India.
authors: Varinder
authors: V
authors: Kaur
authors: Biotechnology Research Laboratory, Department of Food Engineering and Technology, Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering and Technology, Longowal 148106, Punjab, India.
authors: Manav B
authors: MB
authors: Bera
authors: Biotechnology Research Laboratory, Department of Food Engineering and Technology, Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering and Technology, Longowal 148106, Punjab, India. Electronic address: pspanesarrr@yahoo.com.
authors: Parmjit S
authors: PS
authors: Panesar
authors: Department of Chemistry, Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering and Technology, Longowal 148106, Punjab, India.
authors: Harish
authors: H
authors: Kumar
authors: Chembiotech Laboratories, Institute of Advanced Science and Technology, 5 The Croft, Buntsford Drive, Stoke Heath, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire B60 4JE, UK.
authors: J F
authors: JF
authors: Kennedy
mesh_terms: D002236:Carbohydrate Conformation; D008829:Microbiology; D011135:Polysaccharides, Bacterial / Q000096:biosynthesis* / Q000737:chemistry / Q000302:isolation & purification
chemical_list: D011135:Polysaccharides, Bacterial; C068570:welan
keywords: Alcaligenes sp.; Conformation properties; Exopolysaccharide; Fermentation; Purification; Welan