Biocatalysis at its finest: Bacillus paralicheniformis produces 4-vinylphenol with potent biological activities

Abstract

Enzymatic and microbial technologies have become increasingly popular for the eco-friendly synthesis of industrial products. This study utilized wild type strain Bacillus paralicheniformis for the biotransformation of phenolic acids namely p-coumaric, caffeic and ferulic acid. B. paralicheniformis efficiently decarboxylated phenolic acids at 30 mM with the yields of 99.9, 40, and 35%, respectively. The complete decarboxylation of 30 mM p-coumaric acid (5 g/L) was achieved at 37 °C within 24 h. The bioreactor was developed with immobilized whole-cell catalyst that transformed 10 g/L of p-coumaric acid solution at a flow rate of 30 mL/h for 72 h. Additionally, p-coumaric acid (2 g/L) was completely decarboxylated by 24 h grown cell free extract. The resulting product, 4-vinylphenol, displayed a range of biological activities. It showed strong cytotoxicity activity on MCF-7 cell line with an inhibitory concentration (IC50) value of 24 μg/ml. Furthermore, it demonstrated anti-elastase and anti-tyrosinase activities; the IC50 values were 199.5 and 46.3 μg/mL respectively. It also showed considerable antioxidant activity with an IC50 value of 6 μg/mL. These findings suggest that 4-vinylphenol could have potential applications in various fields such as pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and in food industry. The study highlights the potential of wild type B. paralicheniformis for eco-friendly, single-step biocatalytic production of pure 4-vinylphenol from p-coumaric acid.