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5h ago

New Enzyme Lets Bacteria Make Tagatose at Up to 95% Yield

A Tufts-led team reports a proof-of-principle biosynthetic route that points to scalable production of a sucrose-like sweetener with fewer calories.

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Consumption of sugar is linked to cardiovascular diseases | Image: X
Scientists Found a Sugar That's Sweet, Low-Calorie, And Doesn't Spike Insulin

Overview

  • Tufts researchers, working with Manus Bio and Kcat Enzymatic, engineered E. coli to convert abundant glucose into the rare sugar tagatose.
  • The key addition was a slime-mold enzyme, Gal1P, which enabled a reversed pathway that first generates galactose from glucose before converting it to tagatose.
  • The process achieved reported yields of up to about 95%, significantly higher than the roughly 40% to 77% seen with earlier methods.
  • Tagatose tastes about 92% as sweet as table sugar while delivering roughly one third of the calories and producing a smaller effect on blood glucose and insulin.
  • Coverage notes GRAS recognition, baking compatibility, and potential oral and gut benefits, while emphasizing the need for optimization and scale-up and cautioning those with fructose intolerance; market projections reach about $250 million by 2032.