TY - JOUR
T1 - Beet red food colourant can be produced more sustainably with engineered Yarrowia lipolytica
AU - Thomsen, Philip Tinggaard
AU - Meramo, Samir
AU - Ninivaggi, Lorenzo
AU - Pasutto, Eleonora
AU - Babaei, Mahsa
AU - Avila-Neto, Paulo Marcelo
AU - Pastor, Marc Cernuda
AU - Sabri, Peyman
AU - Rago, Daniela
AU - Parekh, Tanmay Utsav
AU - Hunding, Sara
AU - Christiansen, Laura Emilie Jul
AU - Sukumara, Sumesh
AU - Borodina, Irina
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, The Author(s).
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - Synthetic
food colourants are widely used in the food industry, but consumer
concerns about safety and sustainability are driving a need for natural
food-colour alternatives. Betanin, which is extracted from red
beetroots, is a commonly used natural red food colour. However, the
betanin content of beetroot is very low (~0.2% wet weight), which means
that the extraction of betanin is incredibly wasteful in terms of land
use, processing costs and vegetable waste. Here we developed a
sustainability-driven biotechnological process for producing red beet
betalains, namely, betanin and its isomer isobetanin, by engineering the
oleaginous yeast Yarrowia lipolytica. Metabolic engineering and fermentation optimization enabled production of 1,271 ± 141 mg l−1 betanin and 55 ± 7 mg l−1
isobetanin in 51 h using glucose as carbon source in controlled
fed-batch fermentations. According to a life cycle assessment, at
industrial scale (550 t yr−1), our fermentation process would
require significantly less land, energy and resources compared with the
traditional extraction of betanin from beetroot crops. Finally, we
apply techno-economic assessment to show that betanin production by
fermentation could be economically feasible in the existing market
conditions.
AB - Synthetic
food colourants are widely used in the food industry, but consumer
concerns about safety and sustainability are driving a need for natural
food-colour alternatives. Betanin, which is extracted from red
beetroots, is a commonly used natural red food colour. However, the
betanin content of beetroot is very low (~0.2% wet weight), which means
that the extraction of betanin is incredibly wasteful in terms of land
use, processing costs and vegetable waste. Here we developed a
sustainability-driven biotechnological process for producing red beet
betalains, namely, betanin and its isomer isobetanin, by engineering the
oleaginous yeast Yarrowia lipolytica. Metabolic engineering and fermentation optimization enabled production of 1,271 ± 141 mg l−1 betanin and 55 ± 7 mg l−1
isobetanin in 51 h using glucose as carbon source in controlled
fed-batch fermentations. According to a life cycle assessment, at
industrial scale (550 t yr−1), our fermentation process would
require significantly less land, energy and resources compared with the
traditional extraction of betanin from beetroot crops. Finally, we
apply techno-economic assessment to show that betanin production by
fermentation could be economically feasible in the existing market
conditions.
U2 - 10.1038/s41564-023-01517-5
DO - 10.1038/s41564-023-01517-5
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 38030899
AN - SCOPUS:85178194578
SN - 2058-5276
VL - 8
SP - 2290
EP - 2303
JO - Nature Microbiology
JF - Nature Microbiology
ER -