Novel enzymes for functional carbohydrates production

This book focuses on the latest research and new techniques in the field of functional carbohydrate-related enzymes. Carbohydrates are a key form of energy for most organisms. The “good” carbohydrates generally refer to functional carbohydrates. In addition to the low or moderate energy-supplying function, they have more nutritious value than traditional carbohydrates and some of them also have health-promoting effects especially prebiotic actions. Several enzymatic methods for the synthesis of such carbohydrates have been discovered and developed in the recent decades, providing a new range of application areas for these novel enzymes.

This book addresses the classification of functional carbohydrate-related enzymes and the overall development in food enzyme in Chapter 1. Chapters 2-5 describe the isomerases or epimerases involved in the production of rare sugars, such as D-allulose, D-mannose, D-tagatose, and D-allose. While the studies of the enzymes related to fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS) and galacto-oligosaccharides (GOS) dominate the scientific literature in the field of enzymatic production of health-functional oligosaccharides, some enzymes also show promise for the emerging oligosaccharide production, which are introduced in Chapters 6-8. Chapters 9-12 summarize the new enzymatic technologies and applications in fructan- and glycan-related industries. The last Chapter gives an overall prospective on the trends of enzymatic functional carbohydrate production. This book is a valuable resource for researchers and graduate students in the fields of biotechnology, enzyme engineering, and carbohydrate production, as well as the health industry.

Wanmeng Mu

Dr. Mu received his PhD in molecular biology from University of Science and Technology of China in 2006. After graduation from USTC, he started his career at Jiangnan University as Associate Professor. From 2011.5 to 2012.10, he conducted postdoctoral research in Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University. In 2015, he was Senior Visiting Scholar in Institute of food science and biotechnology, University of Hohenheim. Currently, he is Professor and Deputy Director of State Key Laboratory of Food Science and Technology in Jiangnan University.

Dr. Mu’s research focuses on sugar enzyme engineering, food biotechnology, biosynthesis of food functional ingredients, etc, particularly on biological synthesis, molecular modification, crystal structure, and applications of industrial food enzymes, include D-allulose 3-epimerase, inulin fructotransferase, cellobiose 2-epimerase, levansucrase and inulosucrase. Dr. Mu published more than 100 SCI Journal papers, includes ACS Catal, Biotechnol Adv, Trends Food Sci Tech, Bioresour Technol, J Agric Food Chem, Carbohyd Polym, Appl Microbiol Biotechnol, Int J Biol Macromol, etc. The total number of citations exceeded 3,000. In 2019, he was invited to chair the editorial board of the top journal J Agric Food Chem. From 2012 to present, he is Editor of J Sci Food Agr.

In 2013, Dr. Mu was selected to obtain the fund from Outstanding Youth Funds of Jiangsu Province. In 2019, he was supported by the outstanding youth fund of the national natural science foundation of China. Dr. Mu won the awards as “333 High-level Talent Training Project" of the Jiangsu Province, "Six Talent Peak" high-level talents of Jiangsu Province, Provincial and ministerial level industry associations, and Young teacher award by Fok Ying Tong Education Foundation.

Wenli Zhang

Dr. Wenli Zhang is an Associate Professor of State Key Laboratory ofFood Science and Technology, Jiangnan University, China. Dr. Zhang graduated from Jiangnan University in Dec. 2017, majoring in Food Science and Engineering. From Oct. 2016 to Oct. 2017, he was the visiting PhD candidate at Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University, USA.

Dr. Zhang’s research interest focuses on the bioproduction of functional sugars, with the goal of characterization, molecular modification, and food-grade expression of sugar enzymes. He is financially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China, and Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province, China. Dr. Zhang published about 60 papers, including 23 publications as the first or corresponding author. 

Qiuming Chen

Dr. Qiuming Chen is a postdoctoral fellow at the State Key Laboratory of Food Science and Technology, Jiangnan University, China. Dr. Chen completed his PhD (2016-2019) in Food Science and Technology at Jiangnan University, Wuxi, China. From Sep. 2017 to Sep. 2019, he was visiting PhD candidate at Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University, USA. He currently focuses on computer-aided rational design of food enzymes and enzymatic production of functional carbohydrates. He is financially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China, and Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province.