Question

Genetic engineering of microorganisms involved in MLF of wine has only been partially successful, why?

Answer 1

Genetic engineering nowadays is the most researched field of genetics.In this field the structures of a cell is altered to carry out a specific desired process .Wine is the most consumed alcoholic beverage all over the world so to meet the ever increasing requirement of wine, scientists are using genetic engineering as a tool to create organism that are capable of fermenting large batch of wine and decreasing the production time.There are various methods employed in genetic engineering for increasing the quality as well as quantity of wine.Wine is usually made by fermentation of grape juice by yeast species like Saccharomyces crevisae .Now most of the genetic engineering research is based on these yeast organisms.

Nowadays due to arising concern about alcohol consumption the scientists are trying to genetically modify these yeast cells such that the carbon metabolism is diverted away from ethanol production partially so that excess alcohol formation is prevented .Moreover excess alcohol in wine changes its taste and makes it less acceptable.To achieve the diversion of carbon metabolism Two glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase isozymes ,GDP-1 and GDP-2 that diverts carbon from glycolysis to glycerol is shown to be affective.But the increased glycerol production lead to increased acetic acid concentration because of the pertuberance in redox mechanism of the modified strain.Thus leading to a partially successful condition .

Moreover in countries like Australia and some of the European countries these genetically modified organisms in commercial wine production is banned because of consumer dissatisfaction and also agronomic, cultural and social factors.Considerable progress has been made during the past years in developing industrial Strain having better characteristics which will help in production of wine of superior quality with minimum level of alcohol and etc but despite of such huge research going only about 2 -3 strains are officially for industrial use and these are also not used commercially.One of the genetically modified strain was bakers yeast depressed for maltase and maltose permease .One of the main cause for such low acceptance of GMO in wine making is very low consumer acceptance because the benefits and merits of the use of GMO in wine making is not understood by the consumers as well as the producers.Moreover there are some possible risks over the use of the GMO strains that hinders its widespread use .

Thus efforts should be made to make public aware of the benefits of use of GMO in wine making and also educate them about the health benefits of these GMO as they limit the alcohol consumption without decreasing the intake of wine .Moreover to cope up with the increased demand these GMO are an efficient way to meet the ever increasing demand.