Improvement of taste of natural sweeteners

Abstract

Toward improvement of sweetness, studies on transglycosylation of steviol glycosides, stevioside from Stevia rebaudinana, rubusoside from Rubus suavisimus and their derivatives have been extensively carried out by a variety of enzyme systems. Together with rubusoside, a number of minor diterpene glycosides were isolated from leaves of R. suavissimus, being significant in view of structure-taste relationship of diterpene glycosides of this series. Monoglucuronide of glycyrrhetinic acid (MGGR) was found to be more than 5 times sweeter than glycyrrhizin. Quantitative production of MGGR from glycyrrhizin was achieved by selective removal of the terminal glucuronide unit of glycyrrhizin by an enzyme from Cryptococcus magnus MG-27 (yeast).