Improved Production of Secondary Metabolite by Fermentation

Abstract

Metabolites are the byproducts of metabolism. Their formation critically depends on enzymes that act on a parent structure. As such, they represent defined chemical intermediates in a pathway that is designed to modify the parent compound. Because they are intermediates, metabolites tend to be present in small amounts. Nonetheless, the metabolites that have been inferred to exist in biochemical pathways have had their existence confirmed by rigorous chemical analysis of the isolated compounds. Fermentation products contain chemical energy (they are not fully oxidized) but are considered waste products, since they cannot be metabolized further without the use of oxygen (or other more highly-oxidized electron acceptors). A consequence is that the production of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) by fermentation is less efficient than oxidative phosphorylation, whereby pyruvate is fully oxidized to carbon dioxide. This studies includes information based on published literature on utilization of agro industrial residues for the production of bioactive compounds.Various approaches using microbial fermentation technology have been explored for the production of bioactive compounds which as secondary metabolites could be produced by selected microorganisms. Certain factors have been found to affect the productivity of these compounds, hence the yield of secondary metabolites may be manipulated by controlling these factors in fermentation system.