Research Progress on the Biosynthesis of Lycopene
Lycopene, as a red-colored intermediate of the β-carotene biosynthetic pathway, has attracted considerable attention due to its beneficial role in human health. And it is a potent antioxidant and of much bioactivity such as quenching singlet oxygen and sc
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Research Progress on the Biosynthesis of Lycopene Xin-Jia Wang, Xue-Gang Luo, Peng Wang, Guang Hu and Tong-Cun Zhang
Abstract Lycopene, as a red-colored intermediate of the b-carotene biosynthetic pathway, has attracted considerable attention due to its beneficial role in human health. And it is a potent antioxidant and of much bioactivity such as quenching singlet oxygen and scavenging free radicals, resulting in protection against oxidative DNA damage in vitro and in vivo. In this review we hope to concisely describe the nature of lycopene compounds, the scientific basis for its proposed anti cancer and cardiovascular protection properties and focus on discussion of such advances in microbial production of lycopene by fermentation. Keywords Fermentation engineering Microbial production
Genetic recombination
Lycopene
63.1 Introduction Lycopene is a naturally occurring red carotenoid pigment found in grapefruit, watermelons, red palm oil, and papaya in addition to tomatoes [1]. It exists principally in the chromoplast of plant cells, and among them the content of tomato’s is higher than the others, as much as 3–14 mg/100 g. Lycopene is also X.-J. Wang X.-G. Luo P. Wang T.-C. Zhang Key Laboratory of Industrial Microbiology, Ministry of Education, College of Bioengineering, Tianjin University of Science and Technology, Tianjin, China e-mail: [email protected] X.-J. Wang X.-G. Luo P. Wang G. Hu (&) T.-C. Zhang Tianjin Key Laboratory of Industrial Microbiology, Tianjin, China e-mail: [email protected] G. Hu Shaoxing Institute of Technology, College of Engineering, Peking University, Shaoxing, Zhejiang, China
T.-C. Zhang et al. (eds.), Proceedings of the 2012 International Conference on Applied Biotechnology (ICAB 2012), Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering 249, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-37916-1_63, Ó Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014
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synthesized by plants and microorganisms, but cannot be synthesized by animals and humans and can only be obtained via diet. Therefore, tomatoes and related tomato products are the major source of lycopene compounds, and are also considered as main food source of carotenoids in the human diet [2]. Lycopene is a highly polyunsaturated hydrocarbon that contains 11 conjugated and 2 unconjugated double bonds, whose structure is similar to that of b-carotene except for the b-ionone ring, and could be converted to b-carotene by cyclization. Lycopene, a noncyclic carotenoid having a chemical formula of C40H56 [3] and a molecular weight of 536.85 daltons, exists predominantly in an all-trans form of the most thermodynamically stable configuration. The double bonds in lycopene may isomerize from the all-trans-form to the mono or poly-cis form under the influence of light, heat, or certain chemical reactions. As a member in carotenoid family, lycopene is one of the most potent antioxidants, with a singlet-oxygen-quenching capacity twice as high as that of b-carotene and 10 times higher than that of a-tocopherol. Its oxygen-quenching
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