Bioconversion of eugenol into food flavouring agent vanillin

Abstract

Microorganisms have the ability to chemically modify a wide variety of organic compounds by a process referred to as biological or microbial transformation, or in general, bioconversion. The microbial cells and their catalytic machinery (enzymes) accept a wide array of complex molecules as substrates, yielding products with unparallel chiral (enantio-), positional (region-) and chemical (chemo-) selectivity through various biochemical reactions. The present study was formulated on the objective of the conversion of abundantly available phytomolecules eugenol into vanillin, a compound of industrial importance, using microorganisms Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus niger and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. These microbes were found to be capable of converting eugenol to industrially important cost-effective products, vanillin (used as flavouring agent). The results were analyzed using thin layer and gas chromatographic techniques. Our results demonstrated that A. flavus, A. niger and P. aerouginosa were able to transform eugenol to vanillin. Our findings may provide a novel approach for the production of cost-effective vanillin using microorganisms.