How do you turn coffee with a high aroma into caffeine-free coffee? It is possible that in the future the conversion process will be carried out by bacteria.
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The scientists of the Faculty of Chemistry of Emory University and the Georgia Technion in Atlanta, developed a bacterium that is able to produce new molecules. The intention is to use it to grow caffeine-free coffee trees.
In a report to the prestigious journal of the American Chemical Society to be published on October 27, developers Prof. Justin Gallivan and Sean Desai announced their success.
Bacteria are considered "amazing chemists" - but they only synthesize molecules required for their survival. The two scientists researched a way to direct a bacterium to create chemical molecules on demand - which in the future could be harnessed for human needs. Many industries may benefit from this.
Today, "oil-eating" bacteria are sold, for example, which are used to clean areas in the sea and on land that have been contaminated with oil and petroleum stains. The American researchers used in their work a bacterium that works in the presence of theophylline - a chemical component that is used in drugs to treat asthma but is produced during the breakdown of caffeine found in coffee and tea. One of the reasons that coffee contains high levels of caffeine is that in the coffee tree, caffeine is synthesized quickly, but the breakdown of theophylline in it is very slow. It is known that an enzyme is involved in the process that breaks down caffeine into theophylline.
In order to increase the speed of the chemical decomposition so that it would be possible to create a coffee tree containing tissues low in caffeine, the bacterium was put into action.
From an industrial point of view, the goal is to perfect the bacterium, and supply it to the coffee industry: each bacterium will receive a segment of DNA, the genetic material of the coffee tree, coding for an enzyme that will allow the bacterium to convert caffeine into theophylline it needs. It is not yet clear what taste natural decaffeinated coffee produced using bacteria will have.
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