What is it about?
Soybean contains a plenty amount of isoflavones, a kind of plant secondary metabolite. And many microbial sources transform isoflavone into functional derivatives such as ortho-dihydroxyisoflavone (ODI) and equol. In this minireview, we introduced diverse source of isoflavone metabolizing microbes or enzymes with quantitative comparison of production titer and catalytic efficiency.
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Why is it important?
Some of papers previously published already say about isoflavone metabolizing microbial source or enzymes. We reinforced the quantitative comparison of the biocatalysts which is relevant to industrial application of the functional isoflavone derivatives.
Perspectives
There are many isoflavone metabolizing microbial catalysts and enzymes reported ever. Aspergillus is one of the potent ODI producing fungal strain and many microbial cytochrome P450 and tyrosinase are reponsible for the hydroxylation in the microbial host. On the other hand, many bacteria isolated from gut environment can successfully convert isoflavone into equol, an important phytoestrogenic microbial secondary metabolite. Recently, recombinant strains expressing daidzein-to-equol metabolizing enzymes were developed to produce equol derivatives efficiently under aerobic condition. This technology will pave the way of industrializing the functional isoflavone derivatives.
Dr. Pyung-Gang Lee
Seoul National University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Recent advances in the microbial hydroxylation and reduction of soy isoflavones, FEMS Microbiology Letters, September 2018, Oxford University Press (OUP),
DOI: 10.1093/femsle/fny195.
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