Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.Generate Key Takeaways<\/p>\n
A new bacterial process could produce vitamins in a way that’s more sustainable.<\/p>\n
The study<\/a> from Rice University shows<\/a> how a bacterium common in making cheese, Lactococcus lactis, is able to help ultimately produce vitamin K\u2082 at relatively high levels. The bacteria first make a precursor acid called DHNA, but if it’s produced at too high a level, it’s toxic to the bacteria.<\/p>\n The chemical or extraction processes usually involved in producing vitamin K\u2082 incur higher energy and environmental costs, including toxic solvents, polluting gases, land and water use, and waste by-products. Researchers suggest this method could avoid those and lower costs.<\/p>\n There’s a precedent for making this kind of industrial transition. Vitamin B\u2082 used to be produced chemically, but it generated lots of toxic by-products as a result. Switching to a fermentation process has helped it reduce that pollution<\/a>. Other researchers have shown similar progress in manufacturing techniques for vitamin B\u2089.<\/p>\n “Vitamin-producing microbes could transform nutrition and medicine, but we must first decode their inherent checks and balances,” said<\/a> co-author Caroline Ajo\u2011Franklin. “Our work shows how L. lactis finely tunes its internal supply of the K\u2082 precursor, allowing us to rewire it with precision.”<\/p>\n In other words, researchers still have to sort out exactly how much more aggressively they can get L. lactis to make vitamin K\u2082 building blocks without reaching toxic levels.<\/p>\n Supporting green chemistry<\/a> more broadly can reduce many of the economic and environmental costs of manufacturing. The Environmental Protection Agency has even incentivized innovation on this front by way of the Green Chemistry Challenge Awards<\/a>.<\/p>\n Rice University researchers are hopeful for the benefits of the large-scale application of their work.<\/p>\n “Enhanced production could reduce the need for feedstocks and lab space, ultimately lowering costs and bringing fortified foods and supplements closer to reality,” said<\/a> co-author Jiangguo Zhang.<\/p>\n Join our free newsletter<\/a> for weekly updates on the latest innovations improving our lives<\/strong> and shaping our future<\/strong>, and don’t miss this cool list<\/a> of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50043,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[18,36963,36965,36964,135,19,17,4541,13730,4543],"class_list":{"0":"post-50042","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-environmental-costs","10":"tag-extraction-processes","11":"tag-fermentation-process","12":"tag-health","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-lactococcus-lactis","16":"tag-rice-university","17":"tag-vitamin-k2"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}