B. cereus phospholipase C engineering for efficient degumming of vegetable oil

Abstract

Enzymatic phospholipid removal (degumming) is a fast-growing and environmentally friendly process for vegetable oil refining. Type C phospholipases (PLC) are the preferred enzymes since they provide an extra yield in the oil recovery. Bacillus cereus PLC can hydrolyze phosphatidylcholine (PC) but has a limited efficiency at removing phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), which together represent ∼70% of the phospholipids present in crude soybean oil. In the present work, we show that the B. cereus PLC mutant F66Y can remove up to 90% of PE while retaining its efficiency at hydrolyzing PC. Oil treatment with the engineered enzyme provides an extra yield of 1.84% making the B. cereus PLC F66Y mutant an attractive candidate for its industrial use.