Biotechnological production of vanillin from natural feedstocks and development of new procedures for the recovery of the product

This PhD research project was focused on innovative biotechnological production and recovery of vanillin and vanillin precursors. Experiments carried out using whole cells or crude enzyme preaparations demonstrated that: selective recovery of the product, using macroporous resins, enhances the biological conversion of ferulic acid to vanillin using resting cells of Escherichia coli FR13 strain; (b) thermal pre-treatment at 55°C of crude PVA acylase from Streptomyces mobaraensis DSM40847 improves the conversion of capsaicin to vanillylamin