SYDNEY, June 17 (Xinhua) -- Researchers are developing a cost-effective way to produce low-calorie "rare sugars" using engineered bacteria, potentially paving the way for healthier sweeteners in food and beverages.
Low-calorie rare sugars with a similar taste to table sugar could soon appear on supermarket food shelves, according to a statement from the University of Queensland (UQ) released on Wednesday.
Rare sugars offer the same sweetness, texture and baking properties as conventional sugar but with fewer calories. However, their high production costs have limited widespread use, said Axayacatl Gonzalez, the facility manager of the cell design studio at UQ's Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology.
"These rare sugars occur in some fruits, and they are increasingly coveted as alternative food and beverage sweeteners by the hospitality and commercial food industries," said Gonzalez, who led the project with industry partner MSF Sugar.
Synthetic biologists and bioprocess engineers at UQ's Biosustainability Hub use fermentation to convert cane sugar into rare sugars via "microbial cell factories," engineering bacteria from local cane fields to produce these high-value compounds.
"Once we have the right bacterial strain ... raw sugar goes in, and rare sugars come out," said Food and Beverage Accelerator R&D scientist Zhong Qifeng, who engineered the bacteria to produce rare sugars from cane syrup.
Australia, a major global sugar exporter, could benefit economically from diversifying into rare sugar production, industry representatives said. The initiative is supported by national research infrastructure funding and aims to scale new biosolutions. ■
