High-yield expression of gluten-detoxifying enzymes in pichia pastoris for commercial gluten-free food production

Project partners: University of Edinburgh & Prozymi Biolabs

Project focus area: Agriculture and food production 

This project will develop scalable production methods for novel gluten-detoxifying enzymes that enable safe wheat-based products for people with coeliac disease and gluten sensitivity.

Current gluten-free alternatives represent a daily compromise, products costing 4-5 times more than conventional bread while delivering inferior taste, texture, and nutritional value. Prozymi Biolabs has identified three breakthrough enzyme candidates (E43, B70, B77) that selectively target and neutralize harmful gluten epitopes while preserving beneficial wheat properties, achieving 90% reduction in immunogenic components, enabling safe wheat-based products for gluten-sensitive consumers. The project’s core innovation lies in optimising high-yield expression of these enzymes in robust Pichia pastoris platform. The project partners sophisticated approach combines methanol-free constitutive promoters (PDH, FDH1, UPP, GAP1) in combination with strategic molecular chaperones (PDI, BiP/Kar2) to achieve commercial-scale yields. Through systematic evaluation of multiple promoter and chaperone combinations across wild-type and SuperMan5 Pichia strain, This project will identify optimal expression systems. This engineering biology approach addresses the £733 million global gluten-free bread market.

The project partners enzyme technology will revolutionize this sector by enabling conventional bakeries to use regular wheat flour while producing gluten-safe bread with traditional qualities at reduced costs. Successful completion will advance Prozymi’s enzymes from laboratory scale to commercial manufacturing readiness, supporting the transition to contract manufacturing organisations and enabling market entry in 2028. This represents a critical step towards revolutionising gluten-free food production through biotechnology innovation to deliver better health outcomes and enhanced consumer choice.

For more information

For more information on this project, contact us, or view all Engineering Biology SPARK Award winners.

This project funding is part of the Engineering Biology Innovation Network, led by Innovate UK Business Connect in collaboration with Innovate UK and UKRI’s Technology Mission Fund. The network’s goal is to progress innovations, create a commercially focused community and foster new consortia to advance innovations towards commercial applications.