Erythritol Chemical Structure, Biosynthesis Pathways, Properties, Applications, and Production
Osama Ibrahim
Abstract
Erythritol is a natural four carbon sugar alcohol present in fruits, vegetables, mushrooms and in fermented foods. It is low calorie sweetener manufactured commercially by fermentation using osmophilic yeasts and yeasts-like fungi. Some filamentous fungi and heterofermentative lactic acid bacteria demonstrated on laboratory scale the production of erythritol at lower yield. Erythritol is gaining high market share as natural sweetener with applications in low calorie foods, beverages, and as an additive in combination with high intense zero calorie artificial sweeteners to enhance sweetness, texture, and to mask these artificial sweeteners bitter after taste. Due to increasing demand of erythritol with wide applications in foods, pharmaceuticals, and chemical industries, research activities are focusing on reducing production cost by fermentation conditions optimization. and improve industrial cultures via mutation or genetic engineering to utilize cheap and abundant byproducts such as crude glycerol and lignocellulosic materials as carbon sources in replacement to the costly glucose. Erythritol production with less intermediate metabolites in the fermentation process can be achieved by microbial metabolic pathway engineering. High yield of erythritol with less intermediate metabolites at the end of fermentation process will lead to improve erythritol recovery efficiency with higher yield and specifications.