Biotransformation of ferulic acid and vanillylamine to capsaicin and vanillin in immobilized cell cultures ofCapsicum frutescens

✍ Scribed by T. Sudhakar Johnson; G. A. Ravishankar; L. V. Venkataraman

• Book ID: 104623199
• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 371 KB
• Volume: 44
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0167-6857
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00048188

✦ Synopsis

Immobilized plant cell cultures of Capsicumfrutescens Mill. were treated with the ferulic acid and vanillylamine in order to study their biotransformation ability. It was found that ferulic acid and vanillylamine were biotransformed to capsaicin and vanillin. Ferulic acid treated cultures produced more vanillin than capsaicin whereas vanillylamine treated cultures produced more capsaicin. This trend was expected since ferulic acid and vanillylamine are the nearest precursors to vanillin and capsaicin, respectively. Maximum vanillin (315#g/culture was observed in ferulic acid (2.5 mM) treated cultures on the 15th day and maximum capsaicin (190 #g/culture) was in vanillylamine (2.5mM) treated cultures on the 6th day. It was shown that immobilized cell cultures of C. frutescens can perform oxidative deamination, a reversible reaction which was evident by conversion of vanillylamine to vaniUin. This study also provides an example for an alternative route to formation of vanillin by cell cultures.