Beet red food colourant can be produced more sustainably with engineered Yarrowia lipolytica.
Nat Microbiol
; 8(12): 2290-2303, 2023 Dec.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38030899
ABSTRACT
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.
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Yarrowia
/
Beta vulgaris
/
Food Coloring Agents
Language:
En
Journal:
Nat Microbiol
Year:
2023
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country: