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Cheesemaking secret unlocked

Date:
August 18, 2017
Source:
University of Queensland
Summary:
Researchers say their new knowledge on the inner workings of a bacterium has important implications for Australia's billion dollar cheese industry. The research group has explained the regulation of an enzyme in the bacterium Lactococcus, which is used as a starter culture in cheese production.
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Researchers say their new knowledge on the inner workings of a bacterium has important implications for Australia's billion dollar cheese industry.

University of Queensland School of Agriculture and Food Sciences researcher Associate Professor Mark Turner said a discovery by a UQ, Columbia University and University of Washington research group had explained the regulation of an enzyme in the bacterium Lactococcus, which is used as a starter culture in cheese production.

"Our research provides new insights into this industrially important food bacterium," Dr Turner said.

"Australia produces more than a billion dollars' worth of cheese each year, and Lactococcus is the most commonly used starter culture," Dr Turner said.

Two UQ PhD students in Dr Turner's food microbiology research laboratory -- Thu Vu and Huong Pham -- identified that the enzyme known as pyruvate carboxylase was essential for efficient milk acidification, an important industrial trait in Lactococcus starter cultures.

Dr Turner said the enzyme was essential for synthesising the amino acid aspartate, and bacteria defective in the enzyme were unable to produce high levels of lactic acid in milk, which is required for the first stage of cheese making.

"Our collaboration also found that a recently discovered small molecule in bacteria, called cyclic-di-AMP, directly binds to and inhibits the pyruvate carboxylase enzyme."

"The molecule is essential for growth in a wide range of bacteria, including many human pathogens, and we are only in the early stages of understanding how it controls important processes in bacteria."


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Materials provided by University of Queensland. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Journal Reference:

  1. Philip H. Choi, Thu Minh Ngoc Vu, Huong Thi Pham, Joshua J. Woodward, Mark S. Turner, Liang Tong. Structural and functional studies of pyruvate carboxylase regulation by cyclic di-AMP in lactic acid bacteria. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2017; 201704756 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1704756114

Cite This Page:

University of Queensland. "Cheesemaking secret unlocked." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 18 August 2017. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170818102323.htm>.
University of Queensland. (2017, August 18). Cheesemaking secret unlocked. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 18, 2024 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170818102323.htm
University of Queensland. "Cheesemaking secret unlocked." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170818102323.htm (accessed March 18, 2024).

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