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Updated: Dec 25, 2025

High-throughput Synthesis of Carbohydrates and Functionalization of Polyanhydride Nanoparticles
Published on: July 6, 2012
Advances in engineering UDP-sugar supply for recombinant biosynthesis of glycosides in microbes
Yueyang Feng1, Mingdong Yao1, Ying Wang1
1Frontier Science Center for Synthetic Biology and Key Laboratory of Systems Bioengineering (Ministry of Education), School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China; SynBio Research Platform, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemical Science and Engineering, Tianjin 300072, China.
Abstract:
Plant glycosides are of great interest for industries. Glycosylation of plant secondary metabolites can greatly improve their solubility, biological activity, or stability. This allows some plant glycosides to be used as food additives, cosmetic products, health products, antisepsis and anti-cancer drugs. With the continuous expansion of market demand, a variety of biological fermentation technologies has emerged. This review focuses on recombinant microbial biosynthesis of plant glycosides, which uses UDP-sugars as precursors, and summarizes various strategies to increase the yield of glycosides with a key concentration on UDP-sugar supply based on four aspects, i.e., gene overexpression, UDP-sugar recycling, mixed fermentation, and carbon co-utilization. Meanwhile, the application potential and advantages of various techniques are introduced, which provide guidance to the development of high-yield strains for recombinant microbial production of plant glycosides. Finally, the technical challenges of glycoside biosynthesis are pointed out with discussions on future directions of improving the yield of recombinantly synthesized glycosides.
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