The fruit protein that's 2000 times sweeter than sugar

The market for sugar substitutes is on the rise as consumers become increasingly wary of sugar and high-fructose corn syrup.

A new option now looms, with scientists moving closer to commercial production of a fruit protein called brazzein that is far sweeter than sugar — and has fewer kilojoules.

Brazzein first attracted attention as a potential sugar substitute years ago; however, making it in large amounts has been challenging. Purifying it from the West African fruit that produces it naturally is difficult on a commercial scale, and efforts to engineer microorganisms to make the protein have so far yielded a not-so-sweet version in low quantities.

Kwang-Hoon Kong and colleagues from Korea are working on a new approach using yeast to churn out brazzein. Working with Kluyveromyces lactis, the researchers coaxed the yeast to overproduce two proteins that are essential for assembling brazzein. By doing so, the team made 2.6 times more brazzein than they had before with the same organism. A panel of tasters found that the protein produced by this approach was more than 2000 times sweeter than sugar.

The research has been published in ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.