Nutraceuticals

D-Pantothenic acid (DPA)

D-Pantothenic acid (DPA) also known as vitamin B5, is a growth factor and an essential metabolite involves in carbohydrate, protein, and fatty acid metabolism. DPA encompasses many applications in the food, cosmetic, and pharmaceutical industries. DPA could be efficiently produced by microbial fermentation using various metabolic engineering approaches. In common, all the existing production routes involve the supplementation of one or both the precursors of DPA. Our group achieved the highest DPA titer of 4.8 g/L without the supplementation of precursors. Currently, the industrial production of these precursors is from petroleum resources. Our group is focussed in developing a microbial system that can synthesize DPA directly from simple sugars without supplementation of both pantoic acid and β – alanine. Implementation of real-time monitoring and control strategies using PAT tools to enhance DPA production is in progress.

Plantaricin is classified under class I bacteriocins, endows bactericidal activity against pathogenic Listeria monocytogenes and Clostridium difficile. It finds application in food preservation and health care. We are interested in economically efficient production of bacteriocin utilizing low-cost raw feed stocks. In our recent study, whey permeate ( WP) based medium was found to be economically viable for the production of lactic acid (LA) and bacteriocin using L. plantarum CRA52. Further studies are in progress targeting metabolic engineering of GRAS organisms for enhanced production of Bacteriocin from waste biomass.