Production of Complex Flavonoids

Unmet Need: Production of lipophilic methoxylated flavonoids

Numerous methoxylated flavonoids exhibit pronounced bioactivities. Their biotechnological production and diversification are therefore of interest to pharmaceutical and nutraceutical industries. Efforts to engineer flavonoid mechanisms have been conducted earlier but there has not been much progress in production of lipophilic (poly) methoxylated flavonoids

The Technology: Engineering yeast cells for production of methoxylated flavonoids

Researchers at WSU selected a set of enzymes to construct five yeast strains that produce 8- and/or 6-substituted, methoxylated flavones from their natural precursor apigenin. These yeast strains have been shown to produce substantial amounts of 6-hydroxylated, methylated derivatives of naringenin and luteolin.

 Applications:

• Food and beverages industry
• Pharmaceutical industry
• Animal feed industry
• Nutraceutical industry

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Advantages:

• Efficient production of 8- and/or 6-substituted methoxylated flavones as plasmid loss and eventual reduction in biosynthesis rate is outweighed by higher cell growth rate by the use of rich medium.
• High substrate selectivity to produce a number of rare compounds not reported earlier.
• Opens up new strategies of improvement in flavonoid production.

Patent Information:

US Patent Pending, Issue Fee Paid, Serial No. 16/397,371.