Fundamentals of biochemistry and metabolism oflactic acid bacteria The largest and most diverse genus of lactic acid bacteria is Lactobacillus, which includes species with very different biochemical and physiological properties along with special resistance against acidic environment. Because of their high growth rate and productivity, microorganisms belonging to this genus are used in important industrial productions (Kyl€a-Nikkil€a, Hujanen, Leisola, & Palva, 2000) and make use of two main routes to ferment glucose (Gaoet al., 2011; Mayo, Piekarczyk, Kowalczyk, Pablo,& Bardowski, 2010). Lactic acid production from glucose and related fermentation pathwaysHomolactic fermentationThis process takes place in two steps. In the former step, called glycolysis or EmbdeneMeyerhofeParnas pathway, glucose is transformed into pyruvic acid, while in the latterthis is reduced to lactic acid by the reducing power previously produced in the form of NADH. Thus, lactic acid is obtained from glucose as the sole product (Fig. 2) according to the overall equation: Glucose/2Lactic Acidþ2ATP ð1Þ Microorganisms that use only this route for the consumption of carbohydrates are calledObligatory Homofermentative, and these include, among others, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus amylophilus, L. bulgaricus, Lactobacillus helveticus andL. salivarius(Mayoet al., 2010; Nigatu, 2000; Sanders & Klaenhammer, 2001).Homolactic fermentation should theoretically yield 2 mol of lactic acid per mole of consumed glucose with a theoretical yield of 1 g of product per g of substrate, but the experimentalyields are usually lower (0.74e0.99 g g 1) because a portion of the carbon source is used for biomass production (0.07e0.22 g g 1)(Bruno-Barcena, Ragout, Cordoba, & Si~neriz, 1999; Burgos-Rubio, Okos, & Wankat, 2000; Hofvendahl & Hahn-H€agerda, 1997; Srivastava, Roychoudhury, & Sahai, 1992). Under stress conditions such as carbon source limitation, presence of different carbon sources other than glucose, high pH or low temperature, some homofermentative microorganisms can produce formic acid by mixed acid fermentation (Hofvendahl & Hahn-H€agerda, 2000) by the action of pyruvate-formate lyase (Gaoet al., 2011;Mayoet al., 2010).
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