Proteína unicelular sustentável produzida por bactérias: uma revisão da literatura.

Abstract

Research shows that agriculture and livestock have a significant impact on the environment and could become unsustainable as the world population increases, leading to depletion of natural resources and climate change. This scenario triggered the search for more sustainable protein alternatives, and the use of microorganisms has been gaining prominence in the research of new forms of protein production. The objective of this study was to obtain information about this process, performing a literature review to better understand the use of microorganisms for the production of microbial or unicellular proteins. The present literature review was based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews (PRISMA) method, the keywords used were “microbial protein” and “single-cell protein”, together with the Boolean operator AND and the word “food”, for limit the search to the food area. The topics found were about microbial protein production, precision fermentation processes, microorganisms and carbon capture for microbial protein production. The production of the unicellular protein starts from the manufacture of the cell mass, using microorganisms grown in agricultural and/or industrial residues. The production of this biomass consists of a submerged or solid state fermentation process. Single-celled proteins produced using hydrogen and solar energy play an important role in the production of proteins with lower greenhouse gas emissions and land use, having less impact on ecosystems and contributing to the preservation of the environment, fauna and flora of the world, than traditional proteins such as beef and some vegetables.