Featured article: Improvement of the pharmacological activity of menthol via enzymatic β-anomer-selective glycosylation

“Menthol has a considerable cooling effect, but the use range of menthol is limited because of its extremely low solubility in water and inherent flavor ... The in vitro glycosylation of (−)-menthol by uridine diphosphate glycosyltransferase (BLC) from Bacillus licheniformis generated (−)-menthol β-glucoside and new (−)-menthol β-galactoside and (−)-menthol N-acetylglucosamine. The maximum conversion rate of menthol to (−)-menthol β-d-glucoside by BLC was found to be 58.9%. Importantly, (−)-menthol β-d-glucoside had a higher cooling effect and no flavor compared with menthol.”

Editor's quote

The recent achievement of the high-quality journal "AMB Express," namely its being indexed by ISI, has made this fully open access journal even more attractive for authors. In the few years since its launch the journal has published several excellent and highly cited papers. Therefore, we can expect that the first impact factor published in the Thomas Reuters Science Citation Index will be reasonably high. The editors of "AMB Express" will ensure that the journal's performance and the quality of the published papers will continue to improve. Papers devoted to 'Industrial Microbiology' and in particular interest in 'White and Red Biotechnology' are highly welcome; this also includes short papers in which important achievements are communicated.

Alexander Steinbüchel, Editor-in-Chief
University of Münster