History of glutamate production

Abstract

In 1907 Kikunae Ikeda, a professor at the Tokyo Imperial University, began his research to identify the umami component in kelp. Within a year, he had succeeded in isolating, purifying, and identifying the principal component of umami and quickly obtained a production patent. In 1909 Saburosuke Suzuki, an entrepreneur, and Ikeda began the industrial production of monosodium l-glutamate (MSG). The first industrial production process was an extraction method in which vegetable proteins were treated with hydrochloric acid to disrupt peptide bonds. l-Glutamic acid hydrochloride was then isolated from this material and purified as MSG. Initial production of MSG was limited because of the technical drawbacks of this method. Better methods did not emerge until the 1950s. One of these was direct chemical synthesis, which was used from 1962 to 1973. In this procedure, acrylonitrile was the starting material, and optical resolution of dl-glutamic acid was achieved by preferential crystallization. In 1956 a direct fermentation method to produce glutamate was introduced. The advantages of the fermentation method (eg, reduction of production costs and environmental load) were large enough to cause all glutamate manufacturers to shift to fermentation. Today, total world production of MSG by fermentation is estimated to be 2 million tons/y (2 billion kg/y). However, future production growth will likely require further innovation.

Glutamate Dehydrogenases: Enzymology, Physiological Role and Biotechnological Relevance

“…These include biotin limitation [106], which was the first identified condition for glutamate overproduction, addition of fatty acid ester surfactants such as Tween 40 (polyoxyethylene sorbitan monopalmitate) or Tween 60 (polyoxyethylene sorbitan monoestearate) [107], addition of certain -lactam antibiotics such as penicillin [108], use of glycerol-auxotrophic or fatty acid-auxotrophic strains [109], use of temperature-sensitive strains cultured at higher temperature [110], or addition of ethambutol, an inhibitor of cell wall arabinogalactan synthesis [111]. In spite of the apparent diversity of treatments to induce glutamate production and secretion, all of them have features in common and there is a unified view that glutamate production is triggered by environmental conditions that produce damage of the cell surface structures [112][113][114].…”

Características E Segurança Do Glutamato Monossódico Como Aditivo Alimentar: Artigo De Revisão

“…Postula-se que o "umami" seria um quinto gosto básico e desde que o GMS foi reconhecido como realçador de sabor são crescentes suas aplicações na indústria alimentícia (KAWAMURA e KARE, 1987;KAWAMURA et al, 1991). O GMS apresenta uma crescente demanda industrial e alcançou no ano de 2007 uma produção anual estimada em 2 milhões de toneladas (SANO, 2009).A apresentação comercial do GMS é composta de cristais brancos de extensa solubilidade em água e limitada dispersão em alimentos gordurosos devido suas características iônicas (BRANEN et al, 2002 (BRASIL, 2010). Este trabalho tem como objetivo revisar as características e segurança no uso do glutamato monossódico como aditivo alimentar.…”

“…Por m, o pH da solução era ajustado para 3,2, ponto isoelétrico do ácido Lglutâmico, para cristalização e conversão em GMS. A obtenção do sal sódico era alcançada pela neutralização da solução ácida com NaHCO , branqueamento 3 utilizando carvão ativo, ltração, aquecimento e precipitação dos cristais de GMS por meio de centrifugação e posterior desidratação (SANO, 2009).A produção deste aditivo atualmente envolve além da tradicional hidrólise do glúten, métodos de síntese química e processos fermentativos. O uso da fermentação para obtenção do GMS teve início na década de 50 quando foi observada a produção de pequenas quantidades de aminoácidos por E. coli motivando a identicação de outras espécies capazes de proporcionar maior produção destas macromoléculas (AULT, 2004) (Figura 2).…”

On the concomitant crystallization of amino acid crystals upon dissolution of some amino acid salt crystals

“…This deposit is dissolved again by adding caustic soda to the liquid and then recrystallized as monosodium glutamate by solvent evaporation. 11,12 All these examples…”