Several commercial uses and potential novel applications have recently been described for chondroitin sulfate (CS). However, the currently applied animal extractive procedure has a high environmental impact, which may become more profound especially in relation to the forecasted expansion of the CS market for applications as a food supplement, pharmaceutical ingredient, and biopolymer in materials for regenerative medicine. This issue, together with religious and consumer concerns, has prompted the good manufacturing practice (GMP) of chondroitin and CS. This is achievable by combining the design of metabolically engineered microorganisms and tailor-made fermentation processes with semi-synthetic or enzyme-based approaches. The final target is to obtain molecules with specific sulfation patterns that resemble those occurring in natural products and improve the sulfation motif or introduce specific substitutions, such as fucosylation, to tune the biological function. The frontier that is currently triggering attention is related to evaluating the bioactivity of unsulfated chondroitin. Due to recent advancements in the field, a brief survey of the most recent patent and research literature is discussed here.
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Cover Image
Cover Image
The lack of availability of glycans and glycoconjugates has severely limited the development of the field of glycobiology. This issue of Emerging Topics in Life Sciences features nine reviews by respected scientists in the field and deals with the application of metabolic engineering to the production of these complex carbohydrate or saccharide structures. The cover image illustrates that capsular polysaccharides and other bioengineered compounds can be generated by engineered cells, such as Escherichia coli, through the application of various metabolic engineering tools and strategies. The image was kindly provided by Robert J. Linhardt (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) and designed by Asher Williams (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute).
Microbial production and metabolic engineering of chondroitin and chondroitin sulfate
Mattheos A.G. Koffas, Robert J. Linhardt, Donatella Cimini, Odile Francesca Restaino, Chiara Schiraldi; Microbial production and metabolic engineering of chondroitin and chondroitin sulfate. Emerg Top Life Sci 26 October 2018; 2 (3): 349–361. doi: https://doi.org/10.1042/ETLS20180006
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