The Use of Enzymes and Microorganisms for the Production of Aroma Compounds from Lipids

Lipids are an important source of aroma compounds. In foods, lipids are degraded or modified by enzymatic activities that are originally present in the raw materials or that develop later due to the growth of microorganisms. Mimicking these natural pathways, some processes have been developed to produce aroma compounds in bioreactors. In this review we describe the production of aroma compounds from different families: lactones, green notes and ionones. We focus on points that are specific to these reactions in heterogeneous media: physicochemical forces involved in the interactions between the substrate, product and biocatalyst, transfers between the phases and, as the degradation of lipids often requires an oxidation step, on the problems of oxygenation of the reactors.