Microbial Production of Vanillin

Vanilla (4-Hydroxy-3-methoxybenzaldehyde), an aromatic flavour compound, is one of the most commonly used food flavouring agents and is extracted from pods of Vanilla planifolia. It holds tremendous industrial applications in food, pharmaceuticals, beverages, perfumes and as nutraceuticals (1). Vanillin extracted from natural sources represents less than 1% of annual market demand and has a market price 300 times higher than synthetic vanillin (2, 3). Moreover, the industrial demand for natural vanillin exceeds the amount vanillin extracted from plants. This has led to the investigation of alternative routes for the production of this flavour such as the biotechnological production from microorganisms. The aim of the present study was the production of vanillin from microorganisms using bioconversion process. Bacillus subtilis (MTCC 1427), was used to transform various substrates such as eugenol, isoeugenol and ferulic acid in vanillin. Further, detection and quantification of Vanillin was carried out using HPLC. B. subtilis did not show any growth in the culture medium with eugenol as a substrate. Higher vanillin production was obtained in the culture media containing ferulic acid as substrate in comparison to isoeugenol. The findings form the basis for microbial production of vanillin.