Production of Polyglutamic Acid From Bacillus
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What is Polyglutamic Acid?
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Polyglutamic acid is technically a polymer of a polymer. It is made up of a polymerized form of amino acid found in most proteins, which is then combined with an ionized form of glutamate, another amino acid found in all living mammals. It is largely used by pharmaceutical companies as what they call a "carrier," a substance that mimics a protein in order to diffuse a time-sensitive drug throughout the body more quickly and without the degrading effects caused by digestion.
What is Bacillus?
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Bacillus is a genus of multi-celled bacteria that has many individual species, some acting as pathogens, others as benign agents within the body. They are large, rod-shaped, genetically stable and reproduce quickly. Some even produce natural antibiotics. All this, combined with their capacity to generate a high number of enzymes in a small amount of time, makes them very useful for the creation of pharmaceutical products.
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Bacterial Fermentation
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Bacterial fermentation is the process whereby bacteria consume and metabolize various types of sugars to create another substance altogether as an end result. One example would be yeast fermenting beer. In the case of bacillus, this bacterium is introduced to soybeans, which are extremely high in both polymerized amino acids and glutamate. In the absence of high sugar content, the bacillus consumes much of these amino acids to survive and excretes a long chain version of them, polyglutamic acid. Such polyglutamic acid is completely safe to eat, as it is known as a key component of natto, a traditional bean-dish from Japan. The apparent stringy "slime" can be scraped from the fermented soybeans and preserved for inclusion in pharmaceutical products.
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