Gellan gum: how it is made and where it is used
What it found
Gellan gum is a bacterial sugar that forms clear, firm gels and is used in foods, medicines and cosmetics.
The paper gathers what is known about how it is made, its properties and its uses.
What they found
Animal and lab studies
Medical uses
In lab tests, gellan gum has been mixed with drugs to slow their release, used as a scaffold for tissue engineering, and tested in wound healing and stem cell delivery.
Other findings
What it is
Gellan gum is a sugar made by Sphingomonas bacteria. It is a linear molecule with negative charges, built from two glucose units, one glucuronate unit and one rhamnose unit.
Gel properties
When metal ions are present, gellan gum forms a hard, clear gel that stays stable at low pH. It dissolves in water above 40 °C and is stable across pH 2 to 10.
Food uses
In food, gellan gum is used as a thickener, binder, stabilizer, emulsifier and gelling agent. It appears in juices, sweets, jelly, jams, margarine and yogurt.
Yogurt study
Adding 0.1% low-acyl gellan gum to soy milk yogurt gave a stable gel network with higher viscosity, better water retention and a smoother texture than the control.
Production cost
Making gellan gum is more costly than some other thickeners. Researchers have tried waste glycerol, molasses and cheese whey as cheaper starting materials, with yields up to 52.6 g/L.
What the authors conclude
- They say gellan gum is widely used in food, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals because of its natural properties.
- They note that microbial production may be a more economical alternative to chemical synthesis.
- They call for further study to show gellan gum works as a food supplement and to set international standards for prebiotics like it.
How it was done
The authors wanted to pull together current knowledge on gellan gum, from how bacteria make it to how it is used in different industries, because it has useful gelling and stabilizing properties.
The authors reviewed published research on gellan gum, covering its chemical make-up, how it is produced and purified, how it compares with other thickeners, and its uses in food, medicine, cosmetics and labs.
What it can’t tell you
- This is a review of existing research, not a new experiment, so it cannot prove cause and effect.
- Many of the medical and biological uses described come from lab tests or animal studies, which cannot show what happens in people.
- The paper does not report how much gellan gum people typically eat or any health outcomes from eating it.
Who paid
- Conflicts
- The authors declare no conflict of interest.
- Authors work at
- University of Basrah, Iraq
The paper
- Title
- Gellan Gum as a Unique Microbial Polysaccharide: Its Characteristics, Synthesis, and Current Application Trends
- Type
- ReviewThe authors read earlier studies and describe what they found. It isn’t a new study.
- Evidence
- Animals and lab studies
- Summarised from
- Full text
- Cite
- Abdl Aali RAK, Al-Sahlany STG (2024). Gellan Gum as a Unique Microbial Polysaccharide: Its Characteristics, Synthesis, and Current Application Trends. Gels (Basel, Switzerland). doi:10.3390/gels10030183Free full textPubMed 38534601DOI
Summary written 26 Sep 2026. Check it against the paper before it changes what you eat. How we summarise papers · Report an error