Development and Screening of Novel Fungal Strains for Exploitation in the Food Industry

真菌被用来生产许多食品。这通常涉及使用长期建立的菌株，因为事实证明很难为许多物种生产新的改良菌株。然而，我们已经开发出一种技术，使我们能够对食品工业中使用的某些真菌进行有性杂交，并表明这会产生具有增强食品生产特性的后代。这包括生产具有令人愉快的新风味和外观的菌株，以及降低毒素含量。我们现在计划对这些菌株进行筛选，并将其用于商业开发。我们还计划进行更多的杂交，以产生具有其他有利特征的后代，例如更高的酶活性和生长速度，这可能会降低生产成本。所有新菌株都将在食品生产试验中与食品工业合作伙伴合作进行筛选，品尝小组用于测试和确认新菌株和相关食品的吸引力。

Fungi are used to produce a number of foodstuffs. This often involves the use of long-established strains, because it has proved difficult to produce new, improved strains for many species. However, we have developed a technology allowing us to sexually cross certain fungi used in the food industry and shown that this results in the generation of offspring with enhanced properties for use in food production. This includes production of strains with pleasurable novel flavours and appearance, and lowered toxin content. We now plan to take these strains and screen and develop them for commercial exploitation. We also plan to make more crosses to generate offspring with other favourable features, such as higher enzyme activity and growth rate that might reduce manufacturing costs. All the novel strains will be screened in food production trials in collaboration with food industry partners, with taster panels used to test and confirm the appeal of the new strains and related food products.