L-Lysine is an ?-amino acid with the chemical formula HO2CCH(NH2)(CH2)4NH2. It is an essential amino acid for humans. Lysine's codons are AAA and AAG. Lysine is a base, as are arginine and histidine. The ?-amino group often participates in hydrogen bonding and as a general base in catalysis. (The ?-amino group (NH3+) is attached to the fifth carbon beginning from the ?-carbon, which is attached to the carboxyl (C=OOH) group. Common posttranslational modifications include methylation of the ?-amino group, giving methyl-, dimethyl-, and trimethyllysine. The latter occurs in calmodulin. Other posttranslational modifications at lysine residues include acetylation and ubiquitination. Collagen contains hydroxylysine, which is derived from lysine by lysyl hydroxylase. O-Glycosylation of hydroxylysine residues in the endoplasmic reticulum or Golgi apparatus is used to mark certain proteins for secretion from the cell. Lysine is one of the essential amino acids not synthesized biologically in the body. Children and growing animals have a high requirement of lysine, since it is needed for bone formation. Lysine is generally recognized as the most deficient amino acid in the food supply of both man and domestic meat producing animals. Since animal feed, such as grain and defatted oil seeds contain only small quantities of lysine, poultry, cattle and other live stocks are unable to synthesize this amino acid. So it must be added to these feed stuff to provide adequate diet. The excretion of small amount of alanine, glutamic acid, aspartic acid and histidine in a culture of E. coli. addition of ammonium salt in excess of that required for growth resulted in increased amino acid production. The principles of the fermentative method quickly gained acceptance, and systematic work soon began on the production of other amino acids. This marked the birth of the amino acid fermentation industry.The possible utilization of wild strain revealed that many microorganisms, such as bacteria, yeast, filamentous fungi and action mycetes, accumulated amino acids in culture containing a supplementary source of nitrogen. The biosynthetic pathways of most amino acids are now well moved to metabolic control and its break down, including the genus and species specificity of the phenomenon. Protein production by microorganisms rich in essential amino acids are source both as a food supplement and as a source of amino acid. Fifteen amino acids were found in cell hydrolyzate, of which arginine and L-lysine is the most abundant. Most natural strains cannot produce industrially significant amounts of L-lysine in the culture broth due to various metabolic regulation mechanisms. Alteration of these mechanism can lead to L-lysine accumulation. USES & APPLICATION Lysine production for animal feed is a major global industry, reached in 2009 almost 700,000 tonnes for a market value of over €1.22 billion. Lysine is an important additive to animal feed because it is a limiting amino acid when optimizing the growth of certain animals such as pigs and chickens for the production of meat. Lysine supplementation allows for the use of lower-cost plant protein (maize, for instance, rather than soy) while maintaining high growth rates, and limiting the pollution from nitrogen excretion. In turn, however, phosphate pollution is a major environmental cost when corn is used as feed for poultry and swine. Lysine is industrially produced by microbial fermentation, from a base mainly of sugar. Genetic engineering research is actively pursuing bacterial strains to improve the efficiency of production and allow lysine to be made from other substrates. The requirements of amino acids in animals are well defined in various sets of recommendations such as those of NRC (National Research Council), USA, etc. Requirements vary depending on the species and age of animals. Amino acids should be supplied either in the form of protein or crystalline amino acids in feed to meet requirements. By comparing requirements and the actual amino acids present in feed, the order of ‘limiting amino acids’ can be estimated. The orders of limiting amino acids in pig and broiler feeds, composed of corn (or wheat) and soybean meal. Crystalline amino acids should be added to feed in the order of limiting amino acids when the protein content of the feed is reduced, which is the reason why DL-Methionine and L-Lysine HCl were initially introduced to feed. Now, with a more economic supply of L-Threonine and L-Tryptophan available, use of amino acids has entered a new era, in which the use of second and third limiting amino acids is taking off. For example, in the past two to three years, the annual growth rate of L-Threonine usage has been above 20 percent. Since the protein level required by livestock is reduced further with the introduction of second and third limiting amino acids, use of the first limiting amino acid will also be expanded. MARKET SURVEY It can be said that the use of L-Lysine in animal feed in India is largely in the introductory stage at present. The demand is bound to go up, in view of the compulsive need to optimise the quality of the animal feed by the producers to stay ahead in the competitive market. The Indian demand for L-Lysine is estimated to be around 1000 tonnes per annum. Estimated growth rate in demand: 9 to 10% per annum. The global demand for L-Lysine Hydrochloride is around 5,00,000 tonnes per annum with the projected growth rate in demand of around 8.0%. Considering the fact that around 25,000 tonnes of additional capacity has to be created for L-Lysine Mono-hydrochloride to meet the global demand every year, it should be possible for the Indian project to take substantial share in the export market. This would be so, in view of the fact that the Molasses based L-Lysine project in India would be globally competitive from the point of view of the cost factors. The important aspects of the L-Lysine is that the product is based on cane molasses, which is adequately available in the country.
