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Production of diosgenin from yellow ginger (Dioscorea zingiberensis C. H. Wright) saponins by commercial cellulase

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Abstract

A commercial cellulase was first assessed to be effective in hydrolyzing glycosyl at the C-3 and C-26 positions in steroidal saponins from yellow ginger (Dioscorea zingiberensis C. H. Wright) to diosgenin, a very important chemical in the pharmaceutical industry. The effect of different parameters on enzyme hydrolysis was further investigated by systematically varying them. The highest yield was achieved when the hydrolysis ran at 55°C and pH 5.0 with an enzyme to substrate ratio of 15 × 103 U/g. The biotransformed products identified using TLC and HPLC confirmed that the cellulase was capable of releasing diosgenin from steroidal saponins. Moreover, the biotransformation process was explored by LC-MS and LC-MS/MS analysis. Enzymatic hydrolysis together with 40 % of the original sulphuric acid used increased the diosgenin yield by 15.4 ± 2.7% than traditional method. Therefore, the commercial cellulase may serve as a promising tool for industrial diosgenin production and for further use in saponin modification.

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Acknowledgments

The research was supported by the China National “11.5” Program Foundation (2006BAB04A14). We would like to thank Professor Alistair Borthwick from University of Oxford and Professor Iain Bruce from Zhejiang University for their kind help in English editing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Engineering, Peking University, The Key Laboratory of Water and Sediment Sciences, Ministry of Education, 100871, Beijing, China

    Wei Liu, WeiLing Sun, YuLing Zhu & JinRen Ni

  2. Institute for Nanobiomedical Technology and Membrane Biology, State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy of Human Diseases, Cancer Center, West China Hospital, West China Medical School, Sichuan University, 610041, Chengdu, China

    Wen Huang

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  1. Wei Liu
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  2. Wen Huang
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Correspondence to JinRen Ni.

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Liu, W., Huang, W., Sun, W. et al. Production of diosgenin from yellow ginger (Dioscorea zingiberensis C. H. Wright) saponins by commercial cellulase. World J Microbiol Biotechnol 26, 1171–1180 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11274-009-0285-y

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