Biocatalytic Approaches for an Efficient and Sustainable Preparation of Polyphenols and Their Derivatives

Abstract

Many sectors of industry, such as food, cosmetics, nutraceuticals, and pharmaceuticals, have increased their interest in polyphenols due to their beneficial properties. These molecules are widely found in Nature (plants) and can be obtained through direct extraction from vegetable matrices. Polyphenols introduced through the diet may be metabolized in the human body via different biotransformations leading to compounds having different bioactivities. In this context, enzyme-catalyzed reactions are the most suitable approach to produce modified polyphenols that not only can be studied for their bioactivity but also can be labeled as green, natural products. This review aims to give an overview of the potential of biocatalysis as a powerful tool for the modification of polyphenols to enhance their bioaccessibility, bioavailability, biological activity or modification of their physicochemical properties. The main polyphenol transformations occurring during their metabolism in the human body have been also presented.

Efficient 2-Step Enzymatic Cascade for the Bioconversion of Oleuropein into Hydroxytyrosol

“…For the following step, an acyl transferase from Mycobacterium smegmatis (MsAcT), a well-known biocatalyst produced in our lab [ 24 ], has been employed. So far MsAcT has been reported for its capability to efficiently catalyze condensation reactions (i.e., formation of esters and amides) in water and organic solvents both in batch [ 6 , 24 , 37 , 38 ] and in continuous mode [ 20 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 ].…”

“…OLE chemical structure includes an ester bond between elenoic acid (EA) and hydroxytyrosol (HT) and a glycosidic bond between EA and glucose (GLU) [ 4 ] ( Figure 1 ). The high interest concerning olive plant phenolic compounds focuses on their involvement in many fields of human health [ 5 , 6 ].…”

“…OLE chemical structure includes an ester bond between elenoic acid (EA) and hydroxytyrosol (HT) and a glycosidic bond between EA and glucose (GLU) [4] (Figure 1). The high interest concerning olive plant phenolic compounds focuses on their involvement in many fields of human health [5,6]. OLE is characterized by various biological actions, among them, the antioxidant, anticancer, antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory activities are noteworthy.…”

Enzymatic continuous-flow preparation of nature-inspired phenolic esters as antiradical and antimicrobial agents

“…Other strategies include the incorporation of one or more halogen atoms (Bernini et al, 2018) or, more commonly, the introduction of different aliphatic chain into the molecular skeleton (Sun, Zhou, & Shahidi, 2018), avoiding the derivatization of the phenolic moiety, to which the biological effects are attributed. Lipophilization of phenolic acids or alcohols can be performed either following traditional chemical procedures (Wang et al, 2018;Bernini et al, 2019), enzymatically (Yang, Guo, & Xu, 2012), or chemoenzymatically (Almeida et al, 2016;Contente et al, 2021). Chemical lipophilization is commonly achieved under drastic conditions of pH and temperature using strong acidic heterogeneous or homogeneous catalysts resulting in low selectivity with consequent unwanted side products and the need for purification steps that generate extra waste to dispose of.…”

Biocatalyzed Synthesis of Vanillamides and Evaluation of Their Antimicrobial Activity

“…In this context, identifying natural antimicrobial agents, understanding their mechanism of action, and optimizing their structure–activity relationship are important tasks. Many phenolic compounds derived from plants exhibit antimicrobial properties and therefore have the potential to be applied as new varieties of antimicrobial agents. − For example, benzoic acid derivatives ( i.e. , gentisic acid, vanillic acid, and p -hydroxybenzoic acid) were demonstrated to have antibacterial and antifungal properties .…”