Sugar alcohols find applications in pharmaceuticals, oral and personal care products, and as intermediates in chemical synthesis. While industrial-scale production of these compounds has generally involved catalytic hydrogenation of sugars, microbial-based processes receive increasing attention. The past few years have seen a variety of interesting metabolic engineering efforts to improve the c...

Several different systems for the conversion of sorbitol to hexose have been described in microorganisms. In the pseudomonads, sorbitol may be oxidized to fructose (Shaw, 1956) or to sorbose (Sebek and Randles, 1952). The latter investigators concluded that the conversion of sorbitol to fructose or sorbose did not involve phosphorylation since carbon dioxide was not liberated from bicarbonate b...

Both sorbitol and sucrose are translocated to, and utilized in, sink tissues of apple (Malus domestica). Considering that antisense suppression of aldose 6-phosphate reductase resulted in lower concentrations of sorbitol and higher concentrations of sucrose in source leaves without altering the vegetative growth of apple trees, it was hypothesized that sorbitol metabolism is down-regulated and ...

Whiteflies accumulate the polyhydric alcohol, sorbitol, when exposed to temperatures greater than about 30 degrees C. Feeding experiments using artificial diets containing labeled sucrose showed that more of the label was incorporated into whitefly bodies and less was excreted in the honeydew when feeding was conducted at 41 compared with 25 degrees C. Analysis of the components of the honeydew...

The influence of growth temperature on the ability to ferment D-sorbitol was investigated in Escherichia coli O157:H7. It was found that O157:H7 strains have a temperature-sensitive sorbitol phenotype. D-Sorbitol transport and sorbitol-6-phosphate dehydrogenase activities were expressed in sorbitol-fermenting cells grown at 30 degrees C but only at a low level at 40 degrees C. Sorbitol-positive...

Sorbitol dehydrogenase (l-iditol:NAD(+) oxidoreductase, EC 1.1.1.14) has been detected and characterized from apple (Malus domestica cv. Granny Smith) mesocarp tissue cultures. The enzyme oxidized sorbitol, xylitol, l-arabitol, ribitol, and l-threitol in the presence of NAD. NADP could not replace NAD. Mannitol was slightly oxidized (8% of sorbitol). Other polyols that did not serve as substrat...

Acetic acid bacteria, especially Gluconobacter species, have been known to catalyze the extensive oxidation of sugar alcohols (polyols) such as D-mannitol, glycerol, D-sorbitol, and so on. Gluconobacter species also oxidize sugars and sugar acids and uniquely accumulate two different keto-D-gluconates, 2-keto-D-gluconate and 5-keto-D-gluconate, in the culture medium by the oxidation of D-glucon...

A sorbitol dehydrogenase (GoSLDH) from Gluconobacter oxydans G624 (G. oxydans G624) was expressed in Escherichia coli BL21(DE3)-CodonPlus RIL. The complete 1455-bp codon-optimized gene was amplified, expressed, and thoroughly characterized for the first time. GoSLDH exhibited Km and kcat values of 38.9 mM and 3820 s(-1) toward L-sorbitol, respectively. The enzyme exhibited high preference for N...