Premium
Biotechnological synthesis of water‐soluble food‐grade polyphosphate with Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Author(s) -
Christ Jonas Johannes,
Smith Stephanie A.,
Willbold Sabine,
Morrissey James H.,
Blank Lars Mathias
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
biotechnology and bioengineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.136
H-Index - 189
eISSN - 1097-0290
pISSN - 0006-3592
DOI - 10.1002/bit.27337
Subject(s) - polyphosphate , phosphate , chemistry , polyacrylamide , ethanol precipitation , polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis , chromatography , saccharomyces cerevisiae , ethanol , precipitation , yeast , polymer , biochemistry , enzyme , organic chemistry , polymer chemistry , physics , meteorology
Inorganic polyphosphate (polyP) is the polymer of phosphate. Water‐soluble polyPs with average chain lengths of 2–40 P‐subunits are widely used as food additives and are currently synthesized chemically. An environmentally friendly highly scalable process to biosynthesize water‐soluble food‐grade polyP in powder form (termed bio‐polyP) is presented in this study. After incubation in a phosphate‐free medium, generally regarded as safe wild‐type baker's yeast ( Saccharomyces cerevisiae ) took up phosphate and intracellularly polymerized it into 26.5% polyP (as KPO 3 , in cell dry weight). The cells were lyzed by freeze‐thawing and gentle heat treatment (10 min, 70°C). Protein and nucleic acid were removed from the soluble cell components by precipitation with 50 mM HCl. Two chain length fractions (42 and 11P‐subunits average polyP chain length, purity on a par with chemically produced polyP) were obtained by fractional polyP precipitation (Fraction 1 was precipitated with 100 mM NaCl and 0.15 vol ethanol, and Fraction 2 with 1 final vol ethanol), drying, and milling. The physicochemical properties of bio‐polyP were analyzed with an enzyme assay, 31 P nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, among others. An envisaged application of the process is phosphate recycling from waste streams into high‐value bio‐polyP.