Foods· 2026Q1· Review
Microbial Biotransformation of Plant Bioactive Compounds: Mechanisms, Enhanced Bioactivities, and Applications in Functional Food Development
- 0citations
- Q1SCImago
- 2026year
Short summary
Microbial biotransformation modifies plant bioactive compounds (e.g., polyphenols, flavonoids) into derivatives with improved accessibility and functional properties, using food-compatible microbes like lactic acid bacteria and yeasts.
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Key points
- Microbial biotransformation improves the accessibility and functional properties of plant bioactive compounds.
- Key microbial transformation pathways include deglycosylation, hydrolysis, oxidation–reduction, methylation, and glycosylation.
- Transformed compounds exhibit potential antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and metabolic regulatory effects.
- Applications are found in fermented foods, functional ingredients, and nutraceuticals.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
Plant-derived bioactive compounds, including polyphenols, flavonoids, alkaloids, terpenoids, and saponins, possess diverse health-promoting properties but are often limited by poor bioaccessibility, structural complexity, and low stability. Microbial biotransformation provides a green and food-compatible strategy for modifying these compounds through enzymatic reactions and metabolic processes, generating derivatives with improved accessibility and potential functional properties. This review summarizes recent advances in microbial transformation mediated by lactic acid bacteria, Bacillus, yeasts, and filamentous fungi, focusing on key transformation pathways, including deglycosylation, hydrolysis, oxidation–reduction, methylation, and glycosylation, as well as their enzymatic mechanisms. The applications of transformed products in fermented foods, functional ingredients, and nutraceuticals are discussed, along with their potential antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, metabolic regulatory, and bioavailability-related effects. Current challenges, including incomplete mechanistic understanding, process standardization, safety evaluation, scale-up, and regulatory issues, are highlighted. Future integration of multi-omics, synthetic biology, enzyme engineering, and intelligent fermentation technologies will enhance the efficiency and industrial potential of microbial transformation systems for developing safe and evidence-based functional food ingredients.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Foods, 2026 · DOI ↗
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BiotechnologyBiochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology