From lignocellulosic residues to market: Production and commercial potential of xylooligosaccharides

The updated definition of prebiotic expands the range of potential applications in which emerging xylooligosaccharides (XOS) can be used. It has been demonstrated that XOS exhibit prebiotic effects at lower amounts compared to others, making them competitively priced prebiotics. As a result, the industry is focused on developing alternative approaches to improve processes efficiency that can meet the increasing demand while reducing costs. Recent advances have been made towards greener and more efficient processes, by applying process integration strategies to produce XOS from costless lignocellulosic residues and using genetic engineering to create microorganisms that convert these residues to XOS. In addition, collecting more in vivo data on their performance will be key to achieve regulatory claims, greatly increasing XOS commercial value.CA, SCS and LRR acknowledge their grants (UMINHO/BPD/4/2019, SFRH/BPD/88584/2012 and SFRH/BSAB/142873/2018) from University of Minho and Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology(FCT).The study received financial support from FCT under the scope of the strategic funding of UID/BIO/04469/2019 unit; COMPETE 2020 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006684), through national funds and where applicable co-financed by the FEDER, within the PT2020 Partnership Agreement; the Project FoSynBio (POCI-01-0145FEDER-029549) and Lignozymes (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-029773). The authors also acknowledge BioTecNorte operation (NORTE-01-0145FEDER-000004) funded by the European Regional Development Fund under the scope of Norte2020 - Programa Operacional Regional do Norte.