Overview

The economical stakes of the food-processing industry have always been a major concern in our society. Ingenious technological innovations have improved the yield, diversity, accessibility, and production costs of daily use products. The advances in the sector of health and biotechnology made it possible to offer today food products rich in substances that are not only nutritious but also possess medicinal properties. The iGEM Bordeaux 2013 Team has built a project to produce a new range of lactic cultures able to produce natural flavours and food colouring substances in a yogurt. Our line of products include a yogurt that produces resveratrol, the molecule which is considered to be responsible for the beneficial effects of red wine and therefore implicated in the "French paradox”. The necessary routes of biosynthesis will be introduced by transformation in Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus, agents of lactic fermentation. With this in mind, a work of optimization on the genetical modifications of lactic bacteria has been done. This project will allow in time an easier production of custom yogurts with beneficial and healing properties, while avoiding the use of substances derived from chemical synthesis which is costly and harmful to the environment.