Ingredients ¦ IDM
Figure 2:
Liquid culture of various fungal mycelia. The cells of
the fungal mycelium are incubated under defined, sterile
conditions in liquid culture in the shaking flask.
March/April 2022 ¦ international-dairy.com · 37
Figure 1:
Photometrically determined activities of the reference
enzyme opti-zym z10uc and of the enzymes secreted
by Flammulina velutipes and Pleurotus citrinopileatus
towards various para-nitrophenyl esters (PNP esters).
These serve as substrates for the examined lipases and
contain fatty acids of different chain lengths.
A: Acetic acid analogue, B: Butyric acid analogue,
V: Valeric acid analogue, H: Caproic acid analogue,
O: Caprylic acid analogue, P: Palmitic acid analogue.
erally used only for the visible fruiting body of a fungus, but "fungus"
also includes the so-called mycelium. This is a finely braided
network of fungal filamentary cells, which is mainly located in the
substrate (e.g., humus or wood) on which the fruiting bodies of
the fungi can grow. Numerous edible fungi, mainly of the phylum
Basidiomycota, have been used worldwide for centuries. Therefore,
their use in the food sector is considered safe. The use of
enzymes from edible fungi for the production of food is, however,
extremely innovative and offers a variety of advantages. Edible
fungi usually have a very high enzyme yield and genetic optimization
is therefore not necessary. In addition, the degrading enzymes
are usually released (secreted) directly into the environment by the
fungus, which eliminates the need for complex cell disruption protocols
during industrial production.
Professor Holger Zorn's working group at the Justus-Liebig-
University (JLU) Giessen has been working intensively for many
years on edible fungi and their applications in food biotechnology,
including enzymes, flavorings or natural dyes. The working
group, for example, described and patented an esterase from a
mushroom of the phylum Basidiomycota (Pleurotus sapidus) for
the first time.
Development of an alternative enzyme
substitute from edible fungi
The working group of Prof. Zorn and optiferm GmbH are working
on the development of lipases from edible fungi for use in the
dairy industry as a substitute for the animal lipases used so far.
In the course of the development process, 31 edible fungi were
examined for their ability to form fat-hydrolyzing enzymes. In
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