Abstract
Surfactin has potential as next generation antibiofilm agent to combat antimicrobial resistance against emerging pathogens. However, the widespread industrial applications of surfactin is hampered by its high production cost. In this work, surfactin was produced from Bacillus subtilis using a low-cost brewery waste as a carbon source. The strain produced 210.11 mg L−1L-1<math><msup><mi>L</mi> <mrow><mo>-</mo> <mn>1</mn></mrow> </msup> </math> after 28 h. The antimicrobial activity was observed against all tested strains, achieving complete inhibition for Pseudomonas aeruginosa, at 500 μμ<math><mstyle><mi>μ</mi></mstyle> </math> g mL −1-1<math><msup><mrow></mrow> <mrow><mo>-</mo> <mn>1</mn></mrow> </msup> </math> . A growth log reduction of 3.91 was achieved for P. aeruginosa while, Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus epidermidis showed between 1 and 2 log reductions. In the anti-biofilm assays against P. aeruginosa, the co-incubation, anti-adhesive and disruption showed inhibition, where the greatest inhibition was observed in the co-incubation assay (79.80%). This study provides evidence that surfactin produced from a low-cost substrate can be a promising biocide due to its antimicrobial and anti-biofilm abilities against pathogens.