CORYNESIS™ TECHNOLOGY

How CORYNESIS Technology Produces Free L-Amino Acids

CORYNESIS™ is the fermentation technology behind the FERMATIVE range, built on Corynebacterium glutamicum, a naturally occurring soil bacterium with a well-established role in amino acid biosynthesis, and developed through continuous research to produce a targeted amino acid profile with stable, replicable results at industrial scale.

What distinguishes a precision fermentation product from a conventional amino acid solution is its biological complexity. The fermentation process does not produce a single compound in isolation. It generates a complex matrix of hundreds of metabolites working in concert, including free amino acids, organic acids, vitamins, phenolic compounds, and signalling molecules, each produced by the organism’s own metabolism. This biological complexity defines the agronomic character of the final product. This page explains how CORYNESIS Technology produces that complexity and what it delivers to the crop.

The Production Organism

Corynebacterium glutamicum is a gram-positive, non-pathogenic soil bacterium first isolated in Japan in 1957 for its natural ability to secrete L-glutamic acid under specific growth conditions. It is aerobic, poses no known risk to humans, animals, or the environment, and grows robustly under industrial fermentation conditions. Its central metabolic network, connecting glycolysis, the pentose phosphate pathway, and a complete TCA cycle, links directly to the biosynthetic pathways for all major amino acids.

Production uses C. glutamicum strains selected for a consistent amino acid profile and verified for stability before each production campaign.

The Fermentation Process

CORYNESIS fermentation takes place in stirred-tank bioreactors under aerobic conditions. Using glucose as the carbon source and ammonium as the nitrogen source, C. glutamicum builds free L-amino acids from these simple inputs, accumulating them in the broth alongside a spectrum of biologically active compounds produced by microbial metabolism.

Inoculum Preparation

Every production run begins with a carefully prepared inoculum, the starter culture that is transferred into the main fermentation vessel. Inoculum quality is one of the most critical determinants of fermentation performance: an inoculum that is not in the right physiological state, or that has been compromised by contamination or genetic drift, will underperform regardless of how well the rest of the process is controlled.

The inoculum is developed through a seed train, a series of progressively larger culture vessels from laboratory flask to seed fermenter, each stage running under controlled conditions until the culture reaches the target cell density and metabolic activity. Stability and productive capacity are verified at each stage before transfer. Continuous sterilisation keeps the seed culture and main vessel free of contaminating organisms at every stage.

Medium Composition

The fermentation medium is a precisely formulated aqueous solution that provides everything the production organism requires. All components are defined and controlled from batch to batch, so consistent inputs give a consistent amino acid profile.

Fed-Batch Operation

CORYNESIS fermentation runs in fed-batch mode, the established standard for amino acid production at industrial scale. This configuration is specifically chosen because it delivers higher yield, higher productivity, and greater process reproducibility than simpler batch approaches, while maintaining the precise control needed to achieve a consistent targeted amino acid profile batch after batch.

Process Control

Throughout the fed-batch run, key process parameters are continuously monitored and actively controlled. Each parameter is critical to achieving the target amino acid profile and maintaining fermentation performance:

Downstream Processing

At the end of the fed-batch production phase, the harvested broth is processed using a deliberately minimal sequence of operations. Rather than intensive purification that would strip away biologically active compounds, the process is designed to preserve the full complexity of the fermentation output while delivering a clean, stable, and homogeneous liquid product.

The finished liquid may contain fine submicron biological particles, which settle gradually on standing. Shaking before use redistributes any settled material uniformly.

The Final Product

Free L-Amino Acids

The dominant amino acids in the CORYNESIS Technology product are L-glutamic acid, L-alanine, and L-proline, each with a distinct agronomic role:

The Biological Matrix

Alongside the amino acid fraction, microbial metabolism generates a broad range of additional bioactive compounds that contribute independently and collectively to the product’s agronomic activity. Metabolomics profiling of the product has identified phenolic compounds, diverse carboxylic acids, B-group vitamins and signalling metabolites.

Quality Verification

Every production batch is verified against a defined set of analytical parameters before release. Quality control spans the full production process, from raw material assessment through fermentation monitoring to finished product analysis.