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Updated: Jun 27, 2025

Biosynthesis of a Flavonol from a Flavanone by Establishing a One-pot Bienzymatic Cascade
Published on: August 14, 2019
Novel Catechol O-methyltransferases from Lentinula edodes Catalyze the Generation of Taste-Active Flavonoids
Jean-Philippe Kanter1, Lars Milke2, Judith K Metz1
1Institute of Food Chemistry and Food Biotechnology, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Heinrich-Buff-Ring 17, 35392 Giessen, Germany.
Abstract:
Due to the increasing demand for natural food ingredients, including taste-active compounds, enzyme-catalyzed conversions of natural substrates, such as flavonoids, are promising tools to align with the principles of Green Chemistry. In this study, a novel O-methyltransferase activity was identified in the mycelium of Lentinula edodes, which was successfully applied to generate the taste-active flavonoids hesperetin, hesperetin dihydrochalcone, homoeriodictyol, and homoeriodictyol dihydrochalcone. Furthermore, the mycelium-mediated OMT activity allowed for the conversion of various catecholic substrates, yielding their respective (iso-)vanilloids, while monohydroxylated compounds were not converted. By means of a bottom-up proteomics approach, three putative O-methyltransferases were identified, and subsequently, synthetic, codon-optimized genes were heterologously expressed in Escherichia coli. The purified enzymes confirmed the biocatalytic O-methylation activity against targeted flavonoids containing catechol motifs.
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