Summary
Vanilla extract is widely used in the food and the confectionery industry. Vanillin is the most abundant component of vanilla extract. An understanding of the biosynthetic pathway of vanillin may be important for regulating the production of the compound in plants. It is agreed that vanillin (C6-C1) is a product of phenylpropanoid (C6-C3) compounds. One school of thought suggests that vanillin is formed from ferulic acid that undergoes chain shortening. It was shown that inVanilla planifoliatissue cultures the benzoate derivative pathway operates using phenylpropanoid substrates, leading from trans-cinnamic acid to flavor compounds. The branch point between the C6-C3and C6-C1pathways most likely occurs at the level of p-coumaric acid. The tissue possesses constitutive 3-0-methyltransferase, capable of methylation of externally added 3,4-dihydroxybenzaldehyde. Aromatic C6-C1aldehydes are reduced to the corresponding alcohols by a specific alcohol dehydrogenase and stored.
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Havkin-Frenkel, D., Podstolski, A., Witkowska, E., Molecki, P., Mikolajczyk, M. (1999). Vanillin Biosynthetic Pathways. In: Fu, TJ., Singh, G., Curtis, W.R. (eds) Plant Cell and Tissue Culture for the Production of Food Ingredients. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-4753-2_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-4753-2_4
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