Fermentation
Fermentation, chemical process by which molecules such as glucose are broken down anaerobically. More broadly, fermentation is the foaming that occurs during the manufacture of wine and beer, a process at least 10,000 years old. The frothing results from the evolution of carbon dioxide gas, though this was not recognized until the 17th century. French chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur in the 19th century used the term fermentation in a narrow sense to describe the changes brought about by yeasts and other microorganisms growing in the absence of air (anaerobically); he also recognized that ethyl alcohol and carbon dioxide are not the only products of fermentation.
Anaerobic Breakdown Of Molecules
In the 1920s it was discovered that, in the absence of air, extracts of muscle catalyze the formation of lactate from glucose and that the same intermediate compounds formed in the fermentation of grain are produced by muscle. An important generalization thus emerged: that fermentation reactions are not peculiar to the action of yeast but also occur in many other instances of glucose utilization.
Glycolysis, the breakdown of sugar, was originally defined about 1930 as the metabolism of sugar into lactate. It can be further defined as that form of fermentation, characteristic of cells in general, in which the six-carbon sugar glucose is broken down into two molecules of the three-carbon organic acid, pyruvic acid (the nonionized form of pyruvate), coupled with the transfer of chemical energy to the synthesis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP). The pyruvate may then be oxidized, in the presence of oxygen, through the tricarboxylic acid cycle, or in the absence of oxygen, be reduced to lactic acid, alcohol, or other products. The sequence from glucose to pyruvate is often called the Embden–Meyerhof pathway, named after two German biochemists who in the late 1920s and ’30s postulated and analyzed experimentally the critical steps in that series of reactions.
The term fermentation now denotes the enzyme-catalyzed, energy-yielding pathway in cells involving the anaerobic breakdown of molecules such as glucose. In most cells the enzymes occur in the soluble portion of the cytoplasm. The reactions leading to the formation of ATP and pyruvate thus are common to sugar transformation in muscle, yeasts, some bacteria, and plants.
Industrial Fermentation
Industrial fermentation processes begin with suitable microorganisms and specified conditions, such as careful adjustment of nutrient concentration. The products are of many types: alcohol, glycerol, and carbon dioxide from yeast fermentation of various sugars; butyl alcohol, acetone, lactic acid, monosodium glutamate, and acetic acid from various bacteria; and citric acid, gluconic acid, and small amounts of antibiotics, vitamin B12, and riboflavin (vitamin B2) from mold fermentation. Ethyl alcohol produced via the fermentation of starch or sugar is an important source of liquid biofuel.
Alcoholic Fermentation
Alcoholic fermentation generally means production of ethanol (CH3CH2OH). Commonly yeasts, particularly Saccharomyces cerevisiae, are used for production of various alcoholic beverages, as well as industrial alcohol. Yeasts are essentially aerobic organisms, but they can also grow as facultative anaerobes.
The energy-yield under anaerobic conditions is much lower and hence the growth is slower with much lower cell-yield. When grown with aeration, the cell-yield increases dramatically, but alcohol production falls. Thus, oxygen inhibits fermentation. This is known as Pasteur-effect.
Conversion of pyruvic acid to ethanol proceeds in two steps: pyruvic acid to acetaldehyde and acetaldehyde to ethanol. The first step is catalysed by pyruvic acid decarboxylase which requires TPP as coenzyme, and the second step by alcohol dehydrogenase which requires NADH2 as coenzyme.
Lactic Acid Fermentation
Lactic acid fermentations are of two types:
Homo-fermentative and Heterofermentative.
In the first type, lactic acid is produced as the sole product by reduction of pyruvic acid with the help of the enzyme lactic acid dehydrogenase. The reaction regenerates NAD from NADH2 which is reused for oxidation of GAP to DPGA in the glycolytic pathway.
As one molecule of lactic acid is formed from one molecule of pyruvic acid, two molecules of lactic acid are produced from each molecule of glucose, when it is dissimilated through EMP. In heterofermentative type, the products are lactic acid and ethanol or acetic acid and CO2. The heterofermentative lactic acid bacteria dissimilate glucose via PPC. They produce lactic acid from one-half of the glucose molecule, and ethanol or acetic acid and CO2 from the other half.
Homolactic fermentation is the simplest of all fermentations, involving only a single step in which pyruvic acid is reduced to lactic acid. Lactic acid is formed also in muscles by a similar reaction.
ropionic Acid Fermentation: Propionic acid (CH3-CH2-COOH) is produced by several anaerobic bacteria among which are the coryneform Propionibacterium, and Veillonella, Clostridium, Selenomonas etc. Propionibacterium acidipropionici and P. freudenreichii are the main propionic acid fermenters. Propionibacteria possess cytochromes and catalase and can tolerate some amount of oxygen. They are natural inhabitants of rumen of herbivorous cattle.
The propionic acid bacteria dissimilate glucose via EMP and produce pyruvic acid. By a biotin- linked carboxylation reaction pyruvic acid is converted to oxalacetic acid which is then reduced in two steps to succinic acid through reversal of TCA cycle reactions.
Butanol Fermentation
The bacteria carrying out butyric acid-butanol fermentation are all obligately anaerobic spore- forming bacteria belonging to the genus Clostridium. Besides butyric acid and n-butanol, several other products of this fermentation are acetic acid, ethanol, isopropanol and acetone depending on species.
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