Molecules, Vol. 28, Pages 6591: Green-Chemical Strategies for Production of Tailor-Made Chitooligosaccharides with Enhanced Biological Activities

Molecules, Vol. 28, Pages 6591: Green-Chemical Strategies for Production of Tailor-Made Chitooligosaccharides with Enhanced Biological Activities Molecules doi: 10.3390/molecules28186591 Authors: Reeba Thomas Tamo Fukamizo Wipa Suginta Chitooligosaccharides (COSs) are b-1,4-linked homo-oligosaccharides of N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) or glucosamine (GlcN), and also include hetero-oligosaccharides composed of GlcNAc and GlcN. These sugars are of practical importance because of their various biological activities, such as antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and antitumor activities, as well as triggering the innate immunity in plants. The reported data on bioactivities of COSs used to contain some uncertainties or contradictions, because the experiments were conducted with poorly characterized COS mixtures. Recently, COSs have been satisfactorily characterized with respect to their structures, especially the degree of polymerization (DP) and degree of N-acetylation (DA); thus, the structure–bioactivity relationship of COSs has become more unambiguous. To date, various green-chemical strategies involving enzymatic synthesis of COSs with designed sequences and desired biological activities have been developed. The enzymatic strategies could involve transglycosylation or glycosynthase reactions using reducing end-activated sugars as the donor substrates and chitinase/chitosanase and their mutants as the biocatalysts. Site-specific chitin deacety...
Source: Molecules - Category: Chemistry Authors: Tags: Review Source Type: research