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Updated: Aug 29, 2026

Caffeine Extraction, Enzymatic Activity and Gene Expression of Caffeine Synthase from Plant Cell Suspensions
Published on: October 2, 2018
Effect of the nitrogen source on caffeine degradation by Aspergillus tamarii
G Gutiérrez-Sánchez1, S Roussos, C Augur
1Laboratoire de Microbiologie, IRD, Université de Provence et de la Méditerranée, IFR-BAIM ESIL, Marseille Cedex, France.
Aims:
To evaluate caffeine degradation and nitrogen requirements during Aspergillus tamarii growth in submerged culture.
Methods And Results:
Aspergillus tamarii spores produced on a coffee infusion agar medium added with sucrose were used. Several caffeine and ammonium sulphate concentrations (0-1 and 0-1.36 g l-1, respectively) were tested simultaneously on fungal biomass production and caffeine degradation. An additional caffeine pulse (4 g l-1) was added for all experiments after 48 h of fermentation. Results revealed that when using 0.90 g l-1 of caffeine and 0.14 g l-1 of ammonium sulphate, biomass production and caffeine degradation were enhanced. Highest biomass production (Xmax = 9.87 g l-1) with a specific growth rate (micro) of 0.073 h-1 and caffeine degradation rate of 0.033 g l-1 h-1, was observed under these conditions.
Conclusions:
Caffeine degradation as well as biomass production were characterized.
Significance And Impact Of The Study:
These studies set the stage for future characterization studies of intracellular enzymes involved in caffeine degradation. Moreover, results observed may help in the biotreatment of residues from the coffee agroindustry.
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