Development of a highly efficient oil degumming process using a novel phosphatidylinositol-specific phospholipase C enzyme from Bacillus thuringiensis PL14
Ahlem Eddehech, Renaud Rahier, Danilo Donnarumma, Francesca Rigano, Alexandre Noiriel, Abdelkarim Abousalham, Francesco Cacciola, Luigi Mondello, Zied Zarai
Abstract
The present work reports the heterologous expression and biochemical characterization of a novel phosphatidylinositol phospholipase C from Bacillus thuringiensis PL14 (PI-PLCBt) with potential for oil degumming. As degumming is a necessary refining step for all crude vegetable oils, enzymatic degumming tests were performed on crude soybean oil using rPI-PLCBt. Its efficiency was investigated by determining the phosphorus and diacylglycerol (DAG) contents after different types of treatment. Although the water and chemical degumming process can efficiently reduce the phosphorus content, a specific enzymatic process can still be selected giving its high degumming efficiency of 89.4%, with a noticeable reduction in phosphorus content to 13.7 mg kg−1, close to the values of the chemical approach, and a high increase in DAG. Accordingly, enzymatic degumming could be adopted as an alternative to traditional degumming making the process more efficient, eco-friendly and, at the same time, increasing the nutritional value of the final product.