College of Light Industry and Food Engineering, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, P. R. China.
College of Food Science and Light Industry, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing 211816, P. R. China.
J Agric Food Chem. 2021 Nov 24;69(46):13682-13690. doi: 10.1021/acs.jafc.1c05280. Epub 2021 Nov 10.
Ergothioneine (EGT) is a unique naturally occurring amino acid that is usually biosynthesized by bacteria and fungi. As a food-derived antioxidant and cytoprotectant, it has several physiological benefits and has a wide range of applications in food, medicine, and cosmetics. Traditional production of EGT is mainly through biological extraction or chemical synthesis; however, these methods are inefficient, making large-scale production to meet the growing market demand difficult. Nowadays, the rapid development of synthetic biology has greatly accelerated the research on the EGT production by microbial fermentation. In this paper, the biological characteristics, applications, biosynthesis, separation, and detection methods of EGT were fully reviewed. Furthermore, the approaches and challenges for engineering microbial cells to efficiently synthesize EGT were also discussed. This work provides new ideas and future research potentials in EGT production.
麦硫因（EGT）是一种独特的天然存在的氨基酸，通常由细菌和真菌生物合成。作为一种源自食物的抗氧化剂和细胞保护剂，它具有多种生理益处，在食品、医药和化妆品领域有广泛的应用。EGT 的传统生产主要通过生物提取或化学合成，但这些方法效率低下，难以进行大规模生产以满足不断增长的市场需求。如今，合成生物学的快速发展极大地加速了微生物发酵生产麦硫因的研究。本文全面综述了 EGT 的生物学特性、应用、生物合成、分离和检测方法。此外，还讨论了工程微生物细胞高效合成 EGT 的方法和挑战。这项工作为 EGT 的生产提供了新思路和未来的研究潜力。
