Research Progress in Gene Engineering Expression of Sweet Proteins

Sweet protein as a kind of natural sweeteners, has low calories, high sweetness, and safety to eat. However, due to the raw material growth conditions, short expiry date and other restrictions, resulted high production costs. Gene engineering expression and production of sweet protein can improve its stability, contribute to expand the production scale, reduces production costs, and improve its performance more specifically. However, the research of applying genetic engineering to produce sweet protein, encountered many problems, including the loss of sweet taste due to improper folding and lack of post-translational modification, and the lack of food safety certification due to non-plant extraction, which cannot be recognized by the public. This paper systematically analyzes the application of genetic engineering in sweet protein production and related hot issues for the first time, and provides theoretical data for the future genetic engineering transformation of sweet protein.