Front Cover: Engineering of a Thermostable Biocatalyst for the Synthesis of 2‐O‐Glucosylglycerol (ChemBioChem 18/2021)

Abstract

Enzyme engineering for the synthesis of a cosmetic ingredient: The osmolyte 2‐O‐glucosylglycerol is widely applied as a bioactive moisturizing ingredient in cosmetics and personal‐care products. It is produced on an industrial scale by exploiting the promiscuous transglycosylation activity of a sucrose phosphorylase, but the enzyme currently used suffers from poor thermostability. A homologous sucrose phosphorylase that is far more thermostable was engineered to drastically improve its catalytic performance for the synthesis of 2‐O‐glucosylglycerol, enabling the production of this compound at elevated temperatures. More information can be found in the Full Paper by T. Desmet et al.