Esmaeili Akbar, Tavassoli Afsaneh
Department of Chemical Engineering, North Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
Acta Biochim Pol. 2010;57(3):265-8.
Thymol is present in the essential oils from herbs and spices, such as thyme. It is produced by these plant species as a chemical defense against phytopathogenic microorganisms. Therefore, this compound has attracted great attention in food industry, i.e., it has been used as a natural preservative in foods such as cheese to prevent fungal growth. Previous studies concerning the biotransformation of nerol by Penicillium sp. and microbial transformation of citral by sporulated surface cultures method (SSCM) of Penicillium digitatum have been reported. The objective of this research was to study the pathway involved during biotransformation of citral by Penicillium sp. using two methods. The culture preparation was done using different microbial methods and incubation periods to obtain Penicillium for citral biotransformation. The biotransformation products were identified by gas chromatography (GC) and gas chromatography/mass spectroscopy (GC/MS). A comparison of the two methods showed that SSCM was more effective, its major products were thymol (21.5 %), geranial (18.6 %) and nerol (13.7 %). LM produced only one compound — thymol — with a low efficiency.
百里香酚存在于草本植物和香料（如百里香）的精油中。这些植物物种产生百里香酚作为对植物病原微生物的化学防御。因此，这种化合物在食品工业中引起了极大关注，即它已被用作奶酪等食品中的天然防腐剂，以防止真菌生长。此前已有关于青霉菌对橙花醇的生物转化以及指状青霉的孢子表面培养法（SSCM）对柠檬醛的微生物转化的研究报道。本研究的目的是使用两种方法研究青霉菌对柠檬醛进行生物转化的途径。通过不同的微生物方法和培养时间来制备用于柠檬醛生物转化的青霉菌培养物。生物转化产物通过气相色谱（GC）和气相色谱/质谱联用（GC/MS）进行鉴定。两种方法的比较表明，孢子表面培养法更有效，其主要产物为百里香酚（21.5%）、香叶醛（18.6%）和橙花醇（13.7%）。液体培养法仅产生一种化合物——百里香酚，且效率较低。
