range of fermentation processes
There are five major groups of commercially important fermentations:
The commercial production of microbial biomass may be divided into two major processes:
(1)The production of yeast to be used in baking industry and
(2)The production of microbial cells to be used as human or animal food (single cell protein)
(2) Microbial enzymes
Enzymes have been produced commercially from plant, animal and microbial sources.
Microbial enzymes have the enormous advantage of being able to produced in large quantities by established fermentation techniques.
The advent of recombinant DNA technology has enabled enzymes of animal origin to be synthesized by m.o. e.g insulin.
(3) Microbial metabolites
Metabolites of different microbes are obtained.
2 types:
Primary metabolites
Secondary metabolites.
Many products of primary metabolism are considerable economic importance and are being produced by fermentation.
Many secondary metabolites have antimicrobial activity, others are specific enzyme inhibitors, others are promoters and many have pharmacological properties.
(4) Recombinant products
The advent of recombinant DNA technology has extended the range of potential fermentation products.
Genes from higher organisms may be introduced into microbial cells such that the recipients are capable of synthesizing foreign proteins.
A wide range microbial cells have been used as hosts for such systems including E.coli, Saccharomyces cerevisiae and filamentous fungi.
(5) Transformation processes
Microbial cells may be used to convert a compound into a structurally related, financially more valuable compound. E.g. steroid biotransformation.
The anomaly of the transformation fermentation process is that a large biomass has to be produced to catalyse a single reaction.[4]
Other products that can be obtained using fermentation are,
Biofuels and biochemicals
Study and development of cell factories for production of biofuels (bioethanol, biobutanol, biodiesel) and biochemicals (3-hydroxypropionic acid and ethylene). A common challenge for these cell factories is the requirement of high yield and productivity to make the potential production cost effective and competitive with petroleum based production. An efficient cell factory requires many rounds of metabolic engineering as well as carefully designed and optimized fermentation process. Saccharomyces cerevisiae,is commonly used.
Biopharmaceuticals and nutraceuticlas
A unique property of living cells is that they can produce complex chemicals and proteins. Such products are very difficult, or even impossible, to produce through chemical synthesis. Even though yield and productivity are of importance, the titers (final product concentration) and product quality is of outmost importance. In this field we study the production of heterologous proteins (biopharmaceutical proteins like insulin and hemoglobin). The secretion process, i.e. the process from the expression system to the secreted proteins is studied. Production of different nutraceuticals and other complex molecules such as folates, cancer preventative selenocompounds and isoprenoids.
Enzyme technology
In the field of enzyme technology focuses on enzymes that can degrade and/or modify plant cell wall polymers.Enzyme discovery, cloning and expression and enzyme characterization s spanned. Filamentous fungi can produce a palette of enzymes and how the enzyme production responds to the growth conditions (carbon source). A particular challenge in using enzyme on plant cell wall polymers are that they work on solid substrates, which lead to rate-limitation in enzyme action.
Carbohydrate esterases and their use in biosynthetic reactions are studied.
Biorefineries
An important motivation for fermentation processes is that they may become a key component in a biobased economy. Major focus is on using sustainable raw materials for the fermentation processes are to develop processes using plant cell wall material from the agricultural and forestry sectors including waste and side streams. Using these streams, leads to a number of challenges with respect to its complex composition, in particular inhibitory compounds present in the streams. Work on understanding and improving robustness of yeast strains to make them more suited to ferment efficiently in plant cell wall material derived streams is being done.[5]
- Those that produce microbial cells (biomass) as the product
- Those that produce microbial enzymes
- Those that produce microbial metabolites
- Those that produce recombinant products
- Those that modify a compound which is added to the fermentation – the transformation process.
The commercial production of microbial biomass may be divided into two major processes:
(1)The production of yeast to be used in baking industry and
(2)The production of microbial cells to be used as human or animal food (single cell protein)
(2) Microbial enzymes
Enzymes have been produced commercially from plant, animal and microbial sources.
Microbial enzymes have the enormous advantage of being able to produced in large quantities by established fermentation techniques.
The advent of recombinant DNA technology has enabled enzymes of animal origin to be synthesized by m.o. e.g insulin.
(3) Microbial metabolites
Metabolites of different microbes are obtained.
2 types:
Primary metabolites
Secondary metabolites.
Many products of primary metabolism are considerable economic importance and are being produced by fermentation.
Many secondary metabolites have antimicrobial activity, others are specific enzyme inhibitors, others are promoters and many have pharmacological properties.
(4) Recombinant products
The advent of recombinant DNA technology has extended the range of potential fermentation products.
Genes from higher organisms may be introduced into microbial cells such that the recipients are capable of synthesizing foreign proteins.
A wide range microbial cells have been used as hosts for such systems including E.coli, Saccharomyces cerevisiae and filamentous fungi.
(5) Transformation processes
Microbial cells may be used to convert a compound into a structurally related, financially more valuable compound. E.g. steroid biotransformation.
The anomaly of the transformation fermentation process is that a large biomass has to be produced to catalyse a single reaction.[4]
Other products that can be obtained using fermentation are,
Biofuels and biochemicals
Study and development of cell factories for production of biofuels (bioethanol, biobutanol, biodiesel) and biochemicals (3-hydroxypropionic acid and ethylene). A common challenge for these cell factories is the requirement of high yield and productivity to make the potential production cost effective and competitive with petroleum based production. An efficient cell factory requires many rounds of metabolic engineering as well as carefully designed and optimized fermentation process. Saccharomyces cerevisiae,is commonly used.
Biopharmaceuticals and nutraceuticlas
A unique property of living cells is that they can produce complex chemicals and proteins. Such products are very difficult, or even impossible, to produce through chemical synthesis. Even though yield and productivity are of importance, the titers (final product concentration) and product quality is of outmost importance. In this field we study the production of heterologous proteins (biopharmaceutical proteins like insulin and hemoglobin). The secretion process, i.e. the process from the expression system to the secreted proteins is studied. Production of different nutraceuticals and other complex molecules such as folates, cancer preventative selenocompounds and isoprenoids.
Enzyme technology
In the field of enzyme technology focuses on enzymes that can degrade and/or modify plant cell wall polymers.Enzyme discovery, cloning and expression and enzyme characterization s spanned. Filamentous fungi can produce a palette of enzymes and how the enzyme production responds to the growth conditions (carbon source). A particular challenge in using enzyme on plant cell wall polymers are that they work on solid substrates, which lead to rate-limitation in enzyme action.
Carbohydrate esterases and their use in biosynthetic reactions are studied.
Biorefineries
An important motivation for fermentation processes is that they may become a key component in a biobased economy. Major focus is on using sustainable raw materials for the fermentation processes are to develop processes using plant cell wall material from the agricultural and forestry sectors including waste and side streams. Using these streams, leads to a number of challenges with respect to its complex composition, in particular inhibitory compounds present in the streams. Work on understanding and improving robustness of yeast strains to make them more suited to ferment efficiently in plant cell wall material derived streams is being done.[5]