Nutraceutics and high value added metabolites produced by lactic acid bacteria

Abstract

Due to their broad metabolic versatility, lactic acid bacteria (LAB) have been extensively used in the food industry for the elaboration of diverse fermented foods and animal feeds. Beyond their classical application as food starter cultures, in recent years LAB have been employed as microbial cell factories for the production of interesting biochemicals such as food ingredients, commodity chemicals, and nutraceuticals. The profound study of LAB physiology together with the design of novel genetic tools for metabolic engineering studies gave rise to their use for novel biotechnological applications. The state-of-the-art of the biotechnological nutraceutic production by LAB, namely polyols (low-calorie sugars), polysaccharides, bioactive peptides, plant metabolites, and in much lesser extent vitamins (this topic will be covered in another chapter) by wild type or genetically modified LAB strains will be addressed in this chapter.