Production of verbenol, a high valued food flavourant from a fusant strain of Aspergillus niger.

A hyperperformer for the production of verbenol was produced from the fusion of two improved strains of Aspergillus niger. A 2-deoxy glucose de-repressed mutant [high sporulation (50%), viability (80%) showing a conversion of 15.6% of initial alpha-pinene to verbenol in 6 h under the conditions used] was fused with another strain enriched with alpha-pinene (26.4% of alpha pinene converted to verbenol) to obtain a final verbenol conversion yield of 48.6% of initial alpha pinene.