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Production of diosgenin from Dioscorea zingiberensis tubers through enzymatic saccharification and microbial transformation

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Abstract

In order to develop a clean and effective approach for producing the valuable drug diosgenin from Dioscorea zingiberensis tubers, two successive processes, enzymatic saccharification and microbial transformation, were used. With enzymatic saccharification, 98.0% of starch was excluded from the raw herb, releasing saponins from the network structure of starch. Subsequently, the treated tubers were fermented with Trichoderma reesei under optimal conditions for 156 h. During microbial transformation, glycosidic bonds, which link β-d-glucose or α-l-rhamnose with aglycone at the C-3 position in saponins, were broken down effectively to give a diosgenin yield of 90.6 ± 2.45%, 42.4% higher than that obtained from bioconversion of raw tubers directly. Scaled up fermentation was conducted in a 5.0-l bioreactor and gave a diosgenin yield of 91.2 ± 3.21%. This is the first report on the preparation of diosgenin from herbs through microbial transformation as well as utilizing other available components in the raw material, providing an environmentally friendly alternative to diosgenin production.

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Notes

  1. The fermentation medium components and condition parameters in this study were optimized for high diosgenin yield and will be reported later.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National “11th-5-Year” Plan Project of China (2006BAB04A14).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Key Laboratory of Water and Sediment Sciences, Ministry of Education, Beijing, 100871, China

    Yu-Ling Zhu, Jin-Ren Ni, Wei Liu & Hui Li

  2. Department of Environmental Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    Yu-Ling Zhu, Jin-Ren Ni, Wei Liu & Hui Li

  3. Institute for Nanobiomedical Technology and Membrane Biology, State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy of Human Diseases, Cancer Center, West China Hospital, West China Medical School, Sichuan University, Keyuan 4 Lu, Gaoxinqu, Chengdu, 610041, China

    Wen Huang

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  1. Yu-Ling Zhu
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  2. Wen Huang
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  4. Wei Liu
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Correspondence to Jin-Ren Ni.

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Zhu, YL., Huang, W., Ni, JR. et al. Production of diosgenin from Dioscorea zingiberensis tubers through enzymatic saccharification and microbial transformation. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 85, 1409–1416 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-009-2200-8

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