Owing to its flavoring, antimicrobial, antioxidant and anticarcinogenic nature, vanillin is widely used in foods, beverages, perfumes and pharmaceutical products. Ferulic acid (FA) is an important precursor of vanillin which is abundant in cereals like maize, rice and wheat and sugar beet. A major drawback of microbial vanillin production from FA is the degradation and biotransformation of toxic vanillin to other phenolic derivatives. The present study is undertaken to explore microbial vanillin production from FA precursor rice bran by employing vanillin-resistant Pediococcus acidilactici BD16, a natural lactic acid bacteria isolate. Extracellular, intracellular and cellular vanillin dehydrogenase activity was found least, which was minimized vanillin degradation, and the strain resists more than 5 g L-1 vanillin in the medium. A metabolomics approach was followed for the detection of FA, vanillin and other metabolites generated during fermentation of rice bran medium. A metabolic pathway was also predicted for vanillin biosynthesis. Approximately 1.06 g L-1 of crude vanillin was recovered from rice-bran-containing medium and this further offers scope for the industrial utilization of the organism and its genetic manipulation to enhance production of biovanillin.
Keywords: Pediococcus acidilactici; ferulic acid esterase; metabolic pathway; phenolic metabolites; rice bran; vanillin; vanillin dehydrogenase.