Revitalizing the ethanologenic bacterium Zymomonas mobilis for sugar reduction in high-sugar-content fruits and commercial products

The excessive consumption of sugars can cause health issues. Different strategies have been developed to reduce sugars in the diets. However, sugars in fruits and commercial products may be difficult to reduce, limiting their usage among certain populations of people. Zymomonas mobilis is a generally recognized as safe (GRAS) probiotic bacterium with the capability to produce levan-type prebiotics, and thrives in high-sugar environments with unique characteristics to be developed for lignocellulosic biofuel and biochemical production. In this study, the sugar reduction capabilities of Z. mobilis ZM4 were examined using two fruits of pear and persimmon and three high-sugar-content commercial products of two pear pastes (PPs) and one Chinese traditional wine (CTW). Our results demonstrated that Z. mobilis ZM4 can utilize sugars in fruits with about 20 g/L ethanol and less than 5 g/L sorbitol produced within 22 h using pears, and about 45 g/L ethanol and 30 g/L sorbitol produced within 34 h using persimmons. When PPs made from pears were used, Z. mobilis can utilize nearly all glucose (ca. 60 g/L) and most fructose (110 g/L) within 100 h with 40 ~ 60 g/L ethanol and more than 20 g/L sorbitol produced resulting in a final sorbitol concentration above 80 g/L. In the high-sugar-content alcoholic Chinese traditional wine, which contains mostly glucose and ethanol, Z. mobilis can reduce nearly all sugars with about 30 g/L ethanol produced, resulting in a final ethanol above 90 g/L. The ethanol yield and percentage yield of Z. mobilis in 50 ~ 60% CTW were 0.44 ~ 0.50 g/g and 86 ~ 97%, respectively, which are close to its theoretical yields—especially in 60% CTW. Although the ethanol yield and percentage yield in PPs were lower than those in CTW, they were similar to those in fruits of pears and persimmons with an ethanol yield around 0.30 ~ 0.37 g/g and ethanol percentage yield around 60 ~ 72%, which could be due to the formation of sorbitol and/or levan in the presence of both glucose and fructose. Our study also compared the fermentation performance of the classical ethanologenic yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae BY4743 to Z. mobilis, with results suggesting that Z. mobilis ZM4 had better performance than that of yeast S. cerevisiae BY4743 given a higher sugar conversion rate and ethanol yield for sugar reduction. This work thus laid a foundation for utilizing the advantages of Z. mobilis in the food industry to reduce sugar concentrations or potentially produce alcoholic prebiotic beverages. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT: [Image: see text] SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40643-021-00467-2.