Industrial amino acid fermentation (Corynebacterium glutamicum)
Fermentación industrial de aminoácidos (Corynebacterium glutamicum)
- Date
- 1956-1957 · confidence high
- Place
- Machida, Tokyo, Japan
- Credited to
- Shukuo Kinoshita, Shigezo Udaka and Kyowa Hakko
- Field
- Life & health
What it is
The Kyowa Hakko team isolated from a soil sample the bacterium Corynebacterium glutamicum, which secretes glutamic acid in large amounts. Monosodium glutamate went from being extracted from seaweed and gluten to being made by fermentation, and the method was extended to lysine, tryptophan and other amino acids.
The strain was isolated from soil of Ueno Zoo (Tokyo) and published in 1957; Kyowa Hakko placed its laboratory in Machida. Lysine fermentation with auxotrophic mutants (1958) was the work of Kinoshita and Nakayama.
What it led to
- global amino acid industry (glutamate, feed lysine, threonine)
- metabolic engineering of Corynebacterium as a platform
- Asian market for flavour enhancers and supplements