Enzymatic production of N-acetylneuraminic acid: advances and perspectives

N-Acetyl-d-neuraminic acid (NeuAc), a well-known and well-studied sialic acid, is found in cell surface glycolipids glycoproteins, where it performs variety of biological functions. The use NeuAc as nutraceutical for infant brain development an intermediate pharmaceutical production demands its on industrial scale. Natural extraction, chemical synthesis, enzymatic biosynthesis are the methods used production. Among these methods, synthesis using N-acetyl-glucosamine (GlcNAc) 2-epimerase (AGE) epimerization N-acetyl-d-neuraminic lyase (NAL) aldol condensation, has been reported to produce with high efficiency. In this review, we discuss advances two-step pyruvate GlcNAc substrates. major challenges producing yield highlighted, including multiple parameter-dependent processes, undesirable reversibility, diminished solubility AGEs NALs. Further, different strategies applied overcome limitations discussed, such concentration temperature shift during process increase conversion yield, mathematical computational simulations optimization, enzyme engineering make enzymes highly efficient, tags chaperones solubility. We suggest future directions that can be followed improve NeuAc.