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Recent advances in curdlan biosynthesis, biotechnological production, and applications

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Abstract

Curdlan is a water-insoluble β-(1,3)-glucan produced by Agrobacterium species under nitrogen-limited condition. Its heat-induced gelling properties render curdlan to be very useful in the food industry initially. Recent advances in the understanding of the role curdlan plays in both innate and adaptive immunity lead to its growing applications in biomedicine. Our review focuses on the recent advances on curdlan biosynthesis and the improvements of curdlan fermentation production both from our laboratory and many others as well as the latest advances on the new applications of curdlan and its derivatives particularly in their immunological functions in biomedicine.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by research grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (20676055, 60604028, 20806034, and 31171640), Ministry of Science and Technology of China (National Basic Research Program of China, 2007CB714303), and Research on the Preparation Technology of Edible Emulsifier and its Industrialization (National Key-Technologies R&D Program of China, 2011BAD23B00). This work was also supported by the Program for Introducing Talents of Discipline to the Universities, no. 111-2-06. The authors would like to thank these organizations for their continuing financial support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Carbohydrate Chemistry and Biotechnology of Ministry of Education, School of Biotechnology, Jiangnan University, 1800, Lihu Road, Wuxi, 214122, China

    Xiao-Bei Zhan, Chi-Chung Lin & Hong-Tao Zhang

  2. Key Laboratory of Industrial Biotechnology of Ministry of Education, School of Biotechnology, Jiangnan University, 1800, Lihu Road, Wuxi, 214122, China

    Xiao-Bei Zhan, Chi-Chung Lin & Hong-Tao Zhang

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  1. Xiao-Bei Zhan
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  2. Chi-Chung Lin
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Correspondence to Xiao-Bei Zhan.

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Zhan, XB., Lin, CC. & Zhang, HT. Recent advances in curdlan biosynthesis, biotechnological production, and applications. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 93, 525–531 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-011-3740-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-011-3740-2

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