An energy-saving glutathione production method from low-temperature cooked rice using amylase-expressing Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Glutathione is a valuable tripeptide that is widely used in the pharmaceutical, food, and cosmetic industries. Glutathione is industrially produced by fermentation using Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Before the glutathione fermentation process with S. cerevisiae, a glucose extraction process from starchy materials is required. This glucose extraction is usually carried out by converting starchy materials to starch using high-temperature cooking and subsequent hydrolysis by amylases to convert starch to glucose. In this study, to develop an energy-saving glutathione production process by reducing energy consumption during the cooking step, we efficiently produced glutathione from low-temperature cooked rice using amylase-expressing S. cerevisiae. The combination of the amylase-expressing yeast with low-temperature cooking is potentially applicable to a variety of energy-saving bio-production methods of chemicals from starchy bio-resources.