[Recent advances in the bio-production of human milk oligosaccharides 2'-FL and 3-FL]

Human milk oligosaccharides (HMO) are important immunoactive components found in breast milk. Scientific research proves that HMOs are significantly beneficial for infant health. 2'-fucosyllactose (2'-FL) is the major component of HMO, which obtained growing attentions from food industry. Besides, 3-fucosyllactose (3-FL) is another important fucosyllactose and it has a similar synthetic route comparing to 2'-FL. Thus, research of the two HMO components has interactive effects for each other. Recently, numerous publications are available for 2'-FL and 3-FL. The microbial cell factory is able to massively produce fucosyllactose via an efficient way, which will show considerable influences in dairy industry. In this paper, we review recent studies on 2'-FL and 3-FL, and discuss their prospects according to published literature and patents.