Characterisation of lactic acid bacterial enzymes and their biotechnological potential in wines

This project is aimed at applying laccases enzymes from lactic acid bacteria (LAB) to eliminate undesirable substances in wines such as toxic compounds (biogenic amines-BA and ochratoxin A-OTA) and off-flavors (volatile phenols - VP) produced from yeasts, fungi and bacteria during the winemaking process.Wine has become a daily consuming-product and the EU is the world’s leading wine producer (60% of world production).

To guarantee food quality and safety control for consumers, winemakers normally use physical and chemical methods to reduce toxins and off-flavours in wines, which will be replaced with LAB laccases to avoid environmental and health problems.The main objective of this project is to explore the structure, practical applications, and the activity of LAB laccases on BA, OTA and VP in wines and determine and quantify their degradation products in order to improve the wine quality.

Specific objectives are to look for new LAB enzymes to eliminate aromatic defects and toxins in wine and determine their degrading products on BA, OTA and VP, to explore their structure and new applications, to discover chaperons that improve laccases expression and to evaluate the enzymatic activity on wine quality.

In order to accomplish these objectives, four stages of the project have been established, which include the genome mining and laccases expression and purification, their activity evaluation in wine and the search of the protein structure.To achieve all these goals, it is required a large combination of technical and transversal skills that will greatly improve the potential of the candidate to become a leader in wine bacteria biotechnology given his background as Biochemical Engineer and his previous experience as researcher in the line of biochemical processes modelling and to enhance his employability opportunities.

The knowledge and results generated from this project can be transferred to the wine/food industry with great benefits in quality and safety.