Mitigating health risks associated with alcoholic beverages through metabolic engineering.

Lahiru N Jayakody, Stephan Lane, Heejin Kim, Yong-Su Jin

Journal: Current opinion in biotechnology 2016;37():173-181

PMID: 26760759

Full Text on Elsevier Science View on PubMed

Abstract

Epidemiological studies have established a positive relationship between the occurrence of cancer and consumption of alcoholic beverages. Metabolic engineering of brewing yeast to reduce potential carcinogenic compounds in alcoholic beverage is technically feasible as well as economically promising. This review presents the mechanisms of formation of potentially carcinogenic components in alcoholic beverages, such as formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, ethyl carbamate, acrylamide, and heavy metals, and introduces effective genetic perturbations to minimize the concentrations of these harmful components. As precise and effective genome editing tools for polyploid yeast are now available, we envision that yeast metabolic engineering might open up new research directions for improving brewing yeast in order to ensure product safety as well as to increase overall quality of alcoholic beverages.

Address: Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA; Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA.; Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA; Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA; Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-921, Republic of Korea. Electronic address: [email protected].

DOI: 10.1016/j.copbio.2015.12.001