Nanofiltration concentration of extracellular glutathione produced by engineered Saccharomyces cerevisiae

This study aimed to optimize extracellular glutathione production by a Saccharomyces cerevisiae engineered strain and to concentrate the extracellular glutathione by membrane separation processes, including ultrafiltration (UF) and nanofiltration (NF). Synthetic defined (SD) medium containing 20 g L−1 glucose was fermented for 48 h; the fermentation liquid was passed through an UF membrane to remove macromolecules. Glutathione in this permeate was concentrated for 48 h to 545.1 ± 33.6 mg L−1 using the NF membrane; this was a significantly higher concentration than that obtained with yeast extract peptone dextrose (YPD) medium following 96 h NF concentration (217.9 ± 57.4 mg L−1). This higher glutathione concentration results from lower cellular growth in SD medium (final OD600 = 6.9 ± 0.1) than in YPD medium (final OD600 = 11.0 ± 0.6) and thus higher production of extracellular glutathione (16.0 ± 1.3 compared to 9.2 ± 2.1 mg L−1 in YPD medium, respectively). Similar fermentation and membrane processing of sweet sorghum juice containing 20 g L−1 total sugars provided 240.3 ± 60.6 mg L−1 glutathione. Increased extracellular production of glutathione by this engineered strain in SD medium and subsequent UF permeation and NF concentration in shortend time may help realize industrial recovery of extracellular glutathione.