Yogurt is extremely rich in nutrients, supports digestive health, increases the immune system, and a plethora of other health benefits. Today’s yogurt is often flavored with fruit. As a result, the yogurt industry must contend with a variety of problems including inconsistency of flavor, quality, and shelf life due to the nature of yogurt and the fermentation process. The aim of our project is to produce yogurt with additional probiotics that are genetically modified into producing their own natural flavors. We designed our system based on a probiotic lactic acid bacterium chassis that produces natural banana flavor and a purple indicator hue.. To accomplish this, we have designed a vector that can be shuttled into both Escherichia coli and Lactobacillus paracasei. Since E. coli is more amenable to the transformation of recombinant DNA and has a high tolerance of expressing foreign proteins, we will utilize this chassis for vector construction and amplification. Once the vector has been isolated, it will be transformed into the target chassis, L. paracasei, before inoculating into a growing yogurt culture. In conclusion, genetically modifying a Lactobacillus can improve nutritional benefits, regulate consistency of flavor due to considerable problems during the fermentation processing, leading to overall improvement of food products making it more sustainable.

Enhanced Flavoured Yogurt
School
Cross Keys High School
Brookhaven, GA
BioBuilderClub Season
2024-2025 Season
Category
Resources
EDITED BBC Poster_ Elemental Alliance_Cross Keys_2025_V2
Cross Keys Elemental Alliance BioTreks Article
BBC LT_Elemental Alliance_Cross Keys_2025
BBC LT_Cross Keys Elemental Alliance_2025