Fusing sugars to small pharmaceutical or food molecules – a process known as glycosylation – can dramatically improve their properties. An EU-funded initiative used advanced enabling biotechnology to develop new, efficient and environmentally friendly processes involving glycosylation.
Glycosylation is a widely used process for improving solubility of healthy food or drug compounds, enhancing the activity of certain antibiotics or modulating the characteristics of flavours or odours. Performing glycosylation reactions via the enzymatic route rather than chemical synthesis is more specific and efficient, environmentally friendly and utilises less energy. However, glycosyltransferases (GTs) – the enzymes that perform the process of glycosylation – require nucleotide-activated sugars to function, which are costly for industrial applications.
Further details: Enzyme engineering to boost biotechnology applications