Vanillyl alcohol oxidase (VAO) from Penicillium simplicissimum is a covalent flavoprotein that has emerged as a promising biocatalyst for the production of aromatic fine chemicals such as vanillin, coniferyl alcohol and enantiopure 1-(4’-hydroxyphenyl) alcohols. The largescale production of this eukaryotic enzyme in Escherichia coli has remained challenging thus far. For that reason an alternat...

Olfactory perception is characterized by interpersonal variability. Although gender has been identified as a potential influencing factor, currently little is known about its effect on perceived hedonicity of individual odorants. This study assessed gender differences in emotional appraisal of 3 odorants (eugenol, vanillin, and hydrogen sulfide [H(2)S]), presented to 25 healthy subjects (13 mal...

The Bacillus subtilis type strain B7-S was obtained through induction with ferulic acid. Here, we present the draft genome of strain B7-S, which contains 5,313,924 bp, with a G+C content of 35.8%, 5,135 protein-coding genes, and 40 tRNA-encoding genes.

This paper introduces the hierarchical computational framework OptStrain aimed at guiding pathway modifications, through reaction additions and deletions, of microbial networks for the overproduction of targeted compounds. These compounds may range from electrons or hydrogen in biofuel cell and environmental applications to complex drug precursor molecules. A comprehensive database of biotransf...

Essential oil allylbenzenes from have been converted quickly and efficiently into the corresponding benzaldehydes in good yields by a two-step "green" reaction pathway based on a solventless alkene group isomerization by KF/Al(2)O(3) to form the corresponding 1-arylpropene and a subsequent solventless oxidation of the latter to the corresponding benzaldehyde by KMnO(4)/CuSO(4).5H(2)O. The assis...

The molecular weights of lignosulfonates (LSs) are modified by a rather simple process involving an alkaline oxidative treatment at moderate temperatures (70-90 °C) and atmospheric pressure. Starting from LSs with an average molecular weight of 90,000 Da, and using such a treatment, one can prepare controlled molecular weight LSs in the range of 30,000 to 3500 Da based on the average mass molec...

Capillary electrophoresis (CE) is usually off-line combined with an adsorption/desorption method to analyze gaseous or atmospheric samples. Here, we demonstrated direct sampling in the air of CE. The inlet end of a fused silica capillary filled with a pH 7.2 phosphate buffer was placed in the air for absorbing gaseous or volatile components, while the outlet end was immersed into a buffer vial ...

A systematic two-step procedure for the structural identification of bioprocesses is followed in order to establish a mechanistic model for vanillin production by Pycnoporus cinnabarinus. The first step is devoted to the identification of the underlying reaction structure and the development of a validated mass balance model for the growth of P. cinnabarinus and the biotransformation of vanilli...

Ortho-vanillin became very popular in coordination chemistry because of its Schiff bases, which generate a rich variety of complexes, ranging from oligonuclear species to coordination polymers. Some of these organic molecules are particularly useful in metallosupramolecular chemistry for assembling homo- and heterometallic helicates. The Schiff bases obtained using aminoalcohols open the door t...

A simple, quantitative method is described for the photometric determination of gangliosides. The procedure is based on the sulfo-phospho-vanillin reaction, and does not require prior hydrolysis. It has been shown that the reaction is probably due to oxidation by sulfuric acid of the sphingosine moiety which results in the formation of aldehydes or ketones or both which then react with the phos...