Advances in enzymatic approaches to rare sugar production

Abstract:

Rare sugars, referred to their limited existence of rare monosaccharides and their derivatives in nature, can be applied in many areas ranging from foodstuffs to pharmaceutics and nutrition, or as raw materials for various natural products and drug candidates. However, most of the rare sugars are quite expensive, and their synthetic chemical routes are both limited and economically unfeasible due to expensive raw materials. Meanwhile, due to the advantages of enzymatic techniques such as moderate reaction conditions, high specificity, efficiency, and sustainability. Therefore, enzymatic transformations have become a very powerful tool in this field. This article reviewed the biological functions and applications of rare sugar, including D-tagatose, D-allulose, D-sorbose, L-fructose, and D-allose. Meanwhile, this article reviews the studies on the enzymes for rare sugar production and its enzymatic production.