Microbial production of coenzyme Q10

Coenzyme Q10(CoQ10) is a biological quinine compound that is widely found in living organisms including yeast, plants, and animals. CoQ10 has two major physiological activities:(a)mitochondrial electron-transport activity and (b)antioxidant activity. Various clinical applications are also available : Parkinson's disease, Heart disease, diabetes. Because of its various application filed, the market size of CoQ 10 is continuously expanding all over the world. A Japanese company, Nisshin Pharma Inc. is the first industrial producer of CoQ10(1974). CoQ10 can be produced by fermentation and chemical synthesis. In several companies, these two methods are used for the production of CoQ10:chemical synthesis - Yungjin, Daewoong, Nishin Parma; fermentation - Kaneka, Kyowa, Yungjin, etc. Researchs in microbial production of CoQ10 have several steps: screening of producing microorganisms, strain development, fermentation process, purification process, scale-up process, plant production. Several strategies are available for the strain development : Random mutation and screening, directed metabolic engineering. For the optimization of fermentation process, various conditions (nutrient, aeration, temperature, culture type, etc.) are considered. Purification is one of the most important step because the quality of final products entirely depends on its purity. The production cost will be reduced and the quality of the CoQ10 will be impoved by continuous researches in strain development, fermentation process, purification process.