INDUSTRIAL MYCOLOGY

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MYCOLOGY (MIC 206)

• INDUSTRIAL MYCOLOGY

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FOOD AND BEVERAGES INDUSTRIES
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Food and Beverages Industry

• Brewers yeast
• S. cerevisiae ferments sugars in cereal grains
  to produce
• alcohol
• beers and lagers.
• Citric acid
• used in soft drinks, candies, artificial lemon
  juice, baked goods etc.
• produced industrially by fungus fermentation
  using Aspergillus niger.
• Minor fraction is produced by Yarrowia
  lipolytica.

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Food and Beverages Industry

• Soya sauce
• used as condiments, colorouring and flavouring
  agents.
• Aerobic fermentation involving Aspergillus oryzae
  or A. sojae.
• Tempe
• Involves fermentation of cooked whole or dehulled
  soya beans by Rhizopus species (R.oigosporus).
• The resulting cake-like product can be cut into
  cubes and fried or cooked with other ingredients.

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Baking Industry

• Bakers yeast
• S.cerevisiae) ferment sugars in the flour,
  releasing CO2.
• ? makes bubbles in the dough and causes the
  dough to rise (increase in volume).
• used in the leavening of bread and other baked
  products.
• The alcohol produced evaporates during baking.
• Cheese Ripening
• The blue mould, Penicillium, is used in the
  ripening process to prepare speciality cheeses
  such as
• blue cheeses e.g. Roquefort, Gorgonzola, Stilton
  etc.
• soft cheeses such as Camembert and Brie.

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Mycoprotein - Quorn

• 1960s, mycoprotein was developed by Rank Hovis
  and McDougall.
• 1986, manufactured and marketed under the name of
  Quorn by Marlow Foods Ltd (named after the area
  of its discovery).
• extracted from a Fusarium venenatum.
• Used as a health food and an alternative to meat.
• found to be very nutritious, not least because it
  contains high quality protein and fibre, but is
  also low in fat.
• leading brand of mycoprotein food product in the
  UK and Ireland.

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MEDICINE
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Antibiotics - Penicillin

• discovered in 1929 by Sir Alexander Fleming, who
  observed inhibition of staphylococci on an agar
  plate contaminated by a Penicillium mold.
• He noticed that a patch of the mold Penicillium
  notatum had grown on a plate containing the
  bacterium Staphylococcus and that around the mold
  there was a zone where no Staphylococcus could
  grow.
• After more research, he was able to show that
  culture broth of the mold prevented growth of the
  Staphylococcus even when diluted up to 800 times.
  
• He named the active substance penicillin but was
  unable to isolate it.

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Antibiotics - Penicillin

• Other examples of antibiotics derived from fungi
  
• Cephalosporin (Cephalosporium sp).
• Griseofulvin (Penicillium griseofulvum and
  Penicillium patulum).

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Statins

• Statins (or HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors) are a
  class of drugs used to lower cholesterol levels .
  
• Are products of metabolic reactions in fungi.
• Lovastatin Aspergillus terreus strains.
• Mevastatin Penicillium citrinum.
• Functions inhibit an enzyme HMG-CoA reductase,
  which plays a central role in the production of
  cholesterol in the liver.
• involved in the synthesis of cholesterol levels
  in cardiovascular (CVD) patients.

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Immuno-suppressives

• Immune suppressants are essential for organ
  transplant patients.
• The T cells of the human immune system recognise
  the new organ as foreign and began to destroy
  the organ.
• Cyclosporin A, produced by Tolypocladium inflatum
  (Filamentous fungus).
• This drugs prevents organ rejection by inhibiting
  T-cell activation.

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Vitamins

• All fungi are a good source of vitamins.
• Ex Brewers Yeast (synthesized B group
  vitamins).
• In industry, Fungi Nematospora gossypii and
  Eremothecium ashbyi used to produced B-
  vitamins.

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ENERGY PRODUCTION
An endophytic fungi, that lives within a plant,
churns out mycodiesel.
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Mycodiesel

• volatile organic products made by fungi that have
  fuel potential.
• The latest discovery is that of an endophytic
  Hypoxylon/Nodulosporium species, or one that
  lives within a plant, that makes the compound
  cineole along with a number of other cyclohexanes
  (colorless, flammable liquids found in petroleum
  crude oil and volcanic gases) and compounds with
  enormous fuel potential.
• Cineole is of special interest since it has been
  shown that it can be added to gasoline at a ratio
  of 8 parts cineole to 1 part of gasoline, ending
  up with a final octane rating of 95.

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CROP IMPROVEMENT
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Crop Improvement

• The most important fungi in crop production is
  Mycorrhizal.
• Form symbiotic relationship with the legumious
  plant.

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Image of mycorr greenhouse
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Preparing the mycelium for seed inoculation at
the University of Namibia
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Ideal houses for mycelium and mushroom growth
Namibia
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Mycelium development fruiting bodies
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WASTE TREATMENT
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Fungi in Waste Treatment

• Fungi such as Aspergillus niger and Chaetomium
  cupreum have also been used to reduce the content
  of highly toxic tannins in tannery effluents.
• Penicillium sp. can also be used to coagulate
  bread yeast suspensions, and to degrade heavily
  coloured olive oil effluents to low molecular
  weight polyphenols.
• Aspergillus oryzae remove the highly coloured
  product melanoidin from liquid molasses wastes