A more biotechnological process, first developed in China in the 1960s, but further developed in the 1990s, bypasses the use of acetone-protecting groups. A second genetically modified microbe species, such as mutant "Erwinia", among others, oxidises sorbose into 2-ketogluconic acid (2-KGA), which can then undergo ring-closing lactonization via dehydration. This method is used in the predominant process used by the ascorbic acid industry in China, which supplies 80% of world's ascorbic acid. American and Chinese researchers are competing to engineer a mutant that can carry out a one-pot fermentation directly from glucose to 2-KGA, bypassing both the need for a second fermentation and the need to reduce glucose to sorbitol.