Strain and Culture Conditions Improvement for -Carotene Production With Mucor

Carotenoids are chemical compounds that are in an increasing demand in the market because of their applications in the food, feed, cosmetics, and pharmaceutical industries. To date, most of the β-carotene is manufactured by chemical processes, but because it is used as feed and food additives, the interest is growing for β-carotene of biological origin. Several fungal species, particularly some included in the Mucorales, have been used to develop fermentation processes for the production of β-carotene. In this chapter, we describe an approach to obtain Mucor circinelloides strains that could be useful in the industrial production of carotenoids and that, for commercial interests, specifically avoids the use of molecular genetic engineering. The method relies on classical genetic techniques to isolate and characterize β-carotene overproducing mutants and to build up strains that better fit the industrial production. M. circinelloides is a dimorphic fungus that grows either as yeast cells or in a mycelial form. This feature can be used to further develop strains with a better industrial potential by isolating monomorphic (yeastlike) mutants or by controlling and modifying the morphology of the organism during batch cultivation.