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Enzyme-Based Technology in Future Food Production: Focus on Molecular Research

A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Biochemistry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 December 2023) | Viewed by 13958

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Department of Agricultural Sciences; Centre for Food Innovation and Development in the Food Industry (CAISIAL), University of Naples Federico II, Portici, 80055 Naples, Italy
Interests: enzyme technology; food biochemistry; future foods; food packaging by active/intelligent coatings; nanocomposites
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The problems associated with the global food supply and quality, food safety, and nutrition require new point of view in the food sciences and technologies today, and alongside traditional technology, strategies able to convert renewable raw materials into food components, additives, and stabilizers to make “future food” healthier, more nutritious, and tastier will be developed. However, these foods still have problems with texture, nutrition, and flavor. Developing efficient strategies to modify and optimize the texture, taste, and nutritional properties of “future foods” is important in food processing. In this context, enzyme-based technology has become a powerful tool for rapid development within the food industry, since this technology reduces processing time, material cost, and energy input and is seen as non-toxic and eco-friendly.

In this Special issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • Enzymes in food processing;
  • Enzymatic-assisted extraction of food byproducts;
  • Enzymes as tools to recover food wastes;
  • Texturizing and flavoring enzymes;
  • Enzymes as tools to improve the technological properties of food ingredients;
  • Enzymes in real-time control of quality and safety parameters of food and processes (biosensors);
  • Enzyme immobilization.

Prof. Dr. Prospero Di Pierro
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • enzyme technology
  • food enzyme
  • novel food
  • enzyme-based biosensors
  • multi‑enzyme systems

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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17 pages, 2942 KiB  
Article
A Versatile Toolset for Genetic Manipulation of the Wine Yeast Hanseniaspora uvarum
by Jürgen J. Heinisch, Andrea Murra, Kai Jürgens and Hans-Peter Schmitz
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2023, 24(3), 1859; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms24031859 - 17 Jan 2023
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 3061
Abstract
Hanseniaspora uvarum is an ascomycetous yeast that frequently dominates the population in the first two days of wine fermentations. It contributes to the production of many beneficial as well as detrimental aroma compounds. While the genome sequence of the diploid type strain DSM [...] Read more.
Hanseniaspora uvarum is an ascomycetous yeast that frequently dominates the population in the first two days of wine fermentations. It contributes to the production of many beneficial as well as detrimental aroma compounds. While the genome sequence of the diploid type strain DSM 2768 has been largely elucidated, transformation by electroporation was only recently achieved. We here provide an elaborate toolset for the genetic manipulation of this yeast. A chromosomal replication origin was isolated and used for the construction of episomal, self-replicating cloning vectors. Moreover, homozygous auxotrophic deletion markers (Huura3, Huhis3, Huleu2, Huade2) have been obtained in the diploid genome as future recipients and a proof of principle for the application of PCR-based one-step gene deletion strategies. Besides a hygromycin resistance cassette, a kanamycin resistance gene was established as a dominant marker for selection on G418. Recyclable deletion cassettes flanked by loxP-sites and the corresponding Cre-recombinase expression vectors were tailored. Moreover, we report on a chemical transformation procedure with the use of freeze-competent cells. Together, these techniques and constructs pave the way for efficient and targeted manipulations of H. uvarum. Full article
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Review

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17 pages, 1069 KiB  
Review
Bioengineered Enzymes and Precision Fermentation in the Food Industry
by Fatma Boukid, Seedhabadee Ganeshan, Yingxin Wang, Mehmet Çağlar Tülbek and Michael T. Nickerson
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2023, 24(12), 10156; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms241210156 - 15 Jun 2023
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 10146
Abstract
Enzymes have been used in the food processing industry for many years. However, the use of native enzymes is not conducive to high activity, efficiency, range of substrates, and adaptability to harsh food processing conditions. The advent of enzyme engineering approaches such as [...] Read more.
Enzymes have been used in the food processing industry for many years. However, the use of native enzymes is not conducive to high activity, efficiency, range of substrates, and adaptability to harsh food processing conditions. The advent of enzyme engineering approaches such as rational design, directed evolution, and semi-rational design provided much-needed impetus for tailor-made enzymes with improved or novel catalytic properties. Production of designer enzymes became further refined with the emergence of synthetic biology and gene editing techniques and a plethora of other tools such as artificial intelligence, and computational and bioinformatics analyses which have paved the way for what is referred to as precision fermentation for the production of these designer enzymes more efficiently. With all the technologies available, the bottleneck is now in the scale-up production of these enzymes. There is generally a lack of accessibility thereof of large-scale capabilities and know-how. This review is aimed at highlighting these various enzyme-engineering strategies and the associated scale-up challenges, including safety concerns surrounding genetically modified microorganisms and the use of cell-free systems to circumvent this issue. The use of solid-state fermentation (SSF) is also addressed as a potentially low-cost production system, amenable to customization and employing inexpensive feedstocks as substrate. Full article
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