Amino Acids in Detail

Dr Kikunae Ikeda isolated the crystals of MSG from sea weeds in 1908. Ajinomoto began the commercial production of MSG from acid hydrolysate of wheat gluten and defatted soybean in 1909.The era of microbial amino acid fermentation started with the discovery of the glutamate producer in the 1950s by Kinoshita and coworkers from the avian fecal contaminated samples of Ueno zoo in Japan. Soon the strains were fine-tuned for amino acid overproduction by process optimization, random and point mutations. 

A dtsRl deletion mutant, auxotrophic to oleic acid,Tween 80 (oleate ester) or Tween 20 (laurate ester) overproduced glutamate. Glutamate overproduction was observed in biotin limitation and Tween 40 as it might lead to inactivation of the biotin enzyme 

The actual industrial production processes remain proprietary for each company and the general research community is aware of only the standard bioprocess. The amino acid production process is usually fed-batch as it lowers the sugar needs, plant downtime, power consumption and increases process efficiency. The production strain used is 

The major product of glutamic acid in market is MSG as a flavor enhancer in Japanese and Chinese cuisine and an indispensable ingredient of most packaged foods. MSG is becoming increasingly popular in spite of its proclaimed health risks. The production of MSG has increased at least thrice ( 3 million tons) since beginning of the century. 

China has been the major producer and supplier of the amino acid in the Asia Pacific with 90% of the consumption within the region. There was a depletion in the prices of MSG due to oversupply in 2013, but has regained momentum and the market is now tightened with stable prices. There is always tight competition between the companies for market dominance and lower prices and are governed by the economy of scale of production and a constant high product quality. 

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