1,3:2,4-Di-p-methylbenyliedene sorbitol

Sorbitol

Enhancing the thermostability of alpha-L-rhamnosidase from Aspergillus terreus and the enzymatic conversion of rutin to isoquercitrin by adding sorbitol.[Pubmed:28241810]

BMC Biotechnol. 2017 Feb 27;17(1):21.

BACKGROUND: Thermally stable alpha-L-rhamnosidase with cleaving terminal alpha-L-rhamnose activity has great potential in industrial application. Therefore, it is necessary to find a proper method to improve the thermal stability of alpha-L-rhamnosidase. RESULTS: In this study, addition of sorbitol has been found to increase the thermostability of alpha-L-rhamnosidase from Aspergillus terreus at temperatures ranging from 65 degrees C to 80 degrees C. Half-life and activation free energy with addition of 2.0 M sorbitol at 70 degrees C were increased by 17.2-fold, 8.2 kJ/mol, respectively. The analyses of the results of fluorescence spectroscopy and CD have indicated that sorbitol helped to protect the tertiary and secondary structure of alpha-L-rhamnosidase. Moreover, the isoquercitrin yield increased from 60.01 to 96.43% with the addition of 1.5 M of sorbitol at 70 degrees C. CONCLUSION: Our findings provide an effective approach for enhancing the thermostability of alpha-L-rhamnosidase from Aspergillus terreus, which makes it a good candidate for industrial processes of isoquercitrin preparation.

Sweet taste in apple: the role of sorbitol, individual sugars, organic acids and volatile compounds.[Pubmed:28322320]

Sci Rep. 2017 Mar 21;7:44950.

Sweetness is one of the main drivers of consumer preference, and thus is given high priority in apple breeding programmes. Due to the complexity of sweetness evaluation, soluble solid content (SSC) is commonly used as an estimation of this trait. Nevertheless, it has been demonstrated that SSC and sweet taste are poorly correlated. Though individual sugar content may vary greatly between and within apple cultivars, no previous study has tried to investigate the relationship between the amount of individual sugars, or ratios of these, and apple sweetness. In this work, we quantified the major sugars (sucrose, glucose, fructose, xylose) and sorbitol and explored their influence on perceived sweetness in apple; we also related this to malic acid content, SSC and volatile compounds. Our data confirmed that the correlation between sweetness and SSC is weak. We found that sorbitol content correlates (similarly to SSC) with perceived sweetness better than any other single sugar or total sugar content. The single sugars show no differentiable importance in determining apple sweetness. Our predictive model based on partial least squares regression shows that after sorbitol and SSC, the most important contribution to apple sweetness is provided by several volatile compounds, mainly esters and farnesene.

The influence of stevia on the flow, shear and compression behavior of sorbitol, a pharmaceutical excipient for direct compression.[Pubmed:28375037]

Pharm Dev Technol. 2018 Feb;23(2):125-131.

Good flow and compaction properties are necessary for the manipulation of particulate material in the pharmaceutical industry. The influence of the addition of an alternative sweetener, rebaudioside A, in a concentration 0.2% w/w and 0.5% w/w on the flow, shear and compaction properties of sorbitol for direct compaction, Merisorb((R)) 200, was investigated in this work. Rebaudioside A worsened the flow properties of sorbitol: the Hausner ratio, the compressibility index and the mass flow rate through the aperture of a model hopper. Using a Jenike shear cell revealed a significant increase in cohesion leading to the decrease of the flow function; moreover, the addition of rebaudioside A increased the total energy for compression of tablets and plasticity estimated by the force-displacement method. Finally, the tablets showed a higher tensile strength and needed longer time to disintegrate compared to the tablets made of sorbitol itself. In view of the results for the free-flowable excipient, sorbitol, the effects of stevia even for a 0.2% w/w concentration have to be carefully considered, particularly whenever used in pharmaceutical formulations of poor flow properties.

Direct catalytic production of sorbitol from waste cellulosic materials.[Pubmed:28222384]

Bioresour Technol. 2017 May;232:152-158.

Cotton wool, cotton textile, tissue paper and printing paper, all potential waste cellulosic materials, were directly converted to sorbitol using a Ru/CNT catalyst in the presence of H2 and using only water as solvent, without any acids. Conversions up to 38% were attained for the raw substrates, with sorbitol yields below 10%. Ball-milling of the materials disrupted their crystallinity, allowing reaching 100% conversion of cotton wool, cotton textile and tissue paper after 4h, with sorbitol yields around 50%. Mix-milling these materials with the catalyst greatly enhanced their conversion rate, and the materials were efficiently converted to sorbitol with a yield around 50% in 2h. However, ball- and mix-milled printing paper presented a conversion of only 50% after 5h, with sorbitol yields of 7%. Amounts of sorbitol of 0.525, 0.511 and 0.559g could be obtained from 1g of cotton wool, cotton textile and tissue paper, respectively.