New food sources of essential trace elements produced by biotechnology facilities

Population satiety with trace elements (TE) is a problem that is widely discussed in nutrition science. For optimal nutrition, the form of TE eaten in food is very important. Organic forms of TE in nutrition are appropriate as human metabolism has adapted to these kinds of nutrients during species evolution. This is now considered a reason for the beneficial use of biotechnologically produced TE sources in human food. Advanced matrixes for TE incorporation are unicellular organisms such as yeast, lactobacilli and Spirulina. Addition of inorganic salts at certain concentrations into cultivation media enables the mineral ions to incorporate into the microbial biomass. As a consequence, the biomass becomes enriched with organic forms of incorporated TE, which are presented by their complexes with amino acids, proteins and probably lipids and polysaccharides. In addition, a new direction of research has made good advances, in which technology has been developed for production of organic forms of TE through complex formation between transition metals (zinc, copper, manganese, chromium, iron) with amino acids and peptides formed during enzymatic hydrolysis of food protein. This brief review discusses the results demonstrating the advances in the biotechnological production of new TE sources, to obtain food components destined for wide prophylaxis of TE deficiency or for dietary treatment of the adverse consequences of these deficiencies.