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4-Hydroxybenzoic acid—a versatile platform intermediate for value-added compounds

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Abstract

4-Hydroxybenzoic acid (4-HBA) has recently emerged as a promising intermediate for several value-added bioproducts with potential biotechnological applications in food, cosmetics, pharmacy, fungicides, etc. Over the past years, a variety of biosynthetic techniques have been developed for producing the 4-HBA and 4-HBA-based products. At this juncture, synthetic biology and metabolic engineering approaches enabled the biosynthesis of 4-HBA to address the increasing demand for high-value bioproducts. This review summarizes the biosynthesis of a variety of industrially pertinent compounds such as resveratrol, muconic acid, gastrodin, xiamenmycin, and vanillyl alcohol using 4-HBA as the starting feedstock. Moreover, potential research activities with a close-up look at the future perspectives to produce new compounds using 4-HBA have also been discussed.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31670033) and the National Key Basic Research Program of China (No. 2012CB721005).

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Correspondence to Xuehong Zhang.

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The authors declare that they have no competing interest.

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This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

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Wang, S., Bilal, M., Hu, H. et al. 4-Hydroxybenzoic acid—a versatile platform intermediate for value-added compounds. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 102, 3561–3571 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-018-8815-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-018-8815-x

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