Specific Growth Rate Control for Pichia pastoris Fed-Batch Cultivation

Based on the structured model for Pichia pastoris proposed earlier, a set point control of the specific growth rate during the methanol growth phase was studied. The experimental results demonstrate that the model-guided methanol feeding profiles work well even in the open loop control mode. Further investigation reveals that higher productivity may be obtained with the feeding profiles corresponding to constant specific growth rate compared with the standard feeding protocol, provided the average value of the specific growth rate during the cultivation is identical.