Separation of salidroside from the fermentation broth of engineered Escherichia coli using macroporous adsorbent resins

Salidroside (8-O-β-D-glucoside of tyrosol), a plant-derived natural product, is used for treatment of hypoxia, fatigue and aging diseases. The availability of salidroside is restricted since it is extracted from 3-5 years old Rhodiola roots, which grow very slowly in the cold region of northern hemisphere of Earth. Our laboratory has constructed an engineered Escherichia coli and established a fermentation process to produce salidroside from glucose. In this article, nine macroporous resins from polarity to non-polarity, including NKA-9, S-8, AB-8, SP825, D101, LSA-8, LX-12, LX-18 and LX-68 resins, were tested to separate salidroside from fermentation broth. After static and dynamic experiments, the weakly polar SP825 resin had a better separation efficiency among nine resins. The adsorption kinetic and isotherm of salidroside on the SP825 resin were determined, and the pseudo-second-order kinetic model and Langmuir model could be fitted well. The effects of the pH on adsorption and ethanol concentration on desorption were investigated, and an optimal separation process was established. The adsorption for salidroside in the SP825 resin column was conducted with loading 150 ml at pH 7, and desorpted by washing 50 ml of 80% ethanol solution. Under the best process conditions, the purity and yield of salidroside in the final product were 91.6% and 74.0%, respectively. The results showed that the macroporous SP825 resin would be feasible and effective to prepare salidroside and has promising application in the downstream process of microbial fermentation.