Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 7, 2025

Rapid One-step Enzymatic Synthesis and All-aqueous Purification of Trehalose Analogues
Published on: February 17, 2017
One-pot biosynthesis of gastrodin using UDP-glycosyltransferase itUGT2 with an in situ UDP-glucose recycling system
Caixia Cui1, Jinyuan Yan2, Yongtao Liu1
1Department of Biopharmaceutical Sciences, Synthetic Biology Engineering Lab of Henan Province, School of Life Science and Technology, Xinxiang Medical University, Xinxiang 453003, PR China.
Abstract:
Gastrodin, the major effective ingredient in Tianma (Gastrodia elata), is a p-hydroxybenzoic acid derivative with various activities. Gastrodin has been widely investigated for food and medical applications. The last biosynthetic step for gastrodin is UDP-glycosyltransferase (UGT)-mediated glycosylation with UDP-glucose (UDPG) as glycosyl donor. In this study, we performed a one-pot reaction both in vitro and in vivo to synthesize gastrodin from p-hydroxybenzyl alcohol (pHBA) by coupling UDP-glucosyltransferase from Indigofera tinctoria (itUGT2) to sucrose synthase from Glycine max (GmSuSy) for regeneration of UDPG. The in vitro results showed that itUGT2 transferred a glucosyl group to pHBA to generate gastrodin. After 37 UDPG regeneration cycles with 2.5% (molar ratio) UDP, the pHBA conversion reached 93% at 8 h. Furthermore, a recombinant strain with itUGT2 and GmSuSy genes was constructed. Through optimizing the incubation conditions, a 95% pHBA conversion rate (220 mg/L gastrodin titer) was achieved in vivo without addition of UDPG, which was 2.6-fold higher than that without GmSuSy. This in situ system for gastrodin biosynthesis provides a highly efficient strategy for both in vitro gastrodin synthesis and in vivo biosynthesis of gastrodin in E. coli with UDPG regeneration.
Related Concept Videos
Biosynthesis of Polysaccharides
Phase II Reactions: Glucuronidation
Oligosaccharide Assembly
Multiple sugar molecules that may or may...
Drug Metabolism: Phase II Reactions
The Calvin Cycle
Other Glycolytic Pathways

