Enzyme production from food wastes using a biorefinery concept

According to Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), one-third of food produced globally for human consumption (nearly 1.3 billion tonnes) is lost along the food supply chain. In many countries food waste is currently landfilled or incinerated together with other combustible municipal wastes for possible recovery of energy. However, these two options are facing more and more economic and environmental stresses. Due to its organic- and nutrient-rich nature, theoretically food waste can be converted to valuable products (e.g. bio-products such as methane, hydrogen, ethanol, enzymes, organic acids, chemicals and fuels) through various fermentation processes. Such conversion of food waste is potentially more profitable than its conversion to animal feed or transportation fuel. Food waste valorisation has therefore gained interest, with value added bio-products such as methane, hydrogen, ethanol, enzymes, organic acids, chemicals, and fuels. Therefore, the aim of this review is to provide information on the food waste situation with emphasis on Asia–Pacific countries and the state of the art food waste processing technologies to produce enzymes

The genome sequence of the bacterium Streptomyces davawensis JCM 4913 and heterologous production of the unique antibiotic roseoflavin

Jankowitsch F, Schwarz J, Rückert C, et al. The genome sequence of the bacterium Streptomyces davawensis JCM 4913 and heterologous production of the unique antibiotic roseoflavin. Journal of bacteriology. 2012;194(24):6818-6827.Streptoymces davawensis JCM 4913 synthesizes the antibiotic roseoflavin, a structural riboflavin (vitamin B(2)) analog. Here we report the 9,466,619 base pair linear chromosome of S. davawensis JCM 4913 and a 89,331 base pair linear plasmid. The sequence has an average G + C content of 70.58% and contains six rRNA operons (16S-23S-5S) and 69 tRNA genes. The 8,616 predicted protein-coding sequences include 32 clusters coding for secondary metabolites several of which are unique to S. davawensis. The chromosome contains long terminal inverted repeats of 33,255 bp each and atypical telomeres. Sequence analysis with regard to riboflavin biosynthesis revealed three different patterns of gene organization in Streptomyces species. Heterologous expression of a set of genes present on a subgenomic fragment of S. davawensis resulted in the production of roseoflavin by the host Streptomyces coelicolor M1152. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that S. davawensis is a close relative to Streptomyces cinnabarinus and, much to our surprise, we found that the latter bacterium is a roseoflavin producer as well