Abstract
Different plant products have been subjected to detailed investigations due to their increasing importance for improving human health. Plants are sources of many groups of natural products, of which large number of new compounds has already displayed their high impact in human medicine. This review deals with the natural products which may be found dissolved in lipid phase (phytosterols, vitamins etc.). Often subsequent convenient transformation of natural products may further improve the pharmacological properties of new potential medicaments based on natural products. To respect basic principles of sustainable and green procedures, enzymes are often employed as efficient natural catalysts in such plant product transformations. Transformations of lipids and other natural products under the conditions of enzyme catalysis show increasing importance in environmentally safe and sustainable production of pharmacologically important compounds. In this review, attention is focused on lipases, efficient and convenient biocatalysts for the enantio- and regioselective formation / hydrolysis of ester bond in a wide variety of both natural and unnatural substrates, including plant products, eg. plant oils and other natural lipid phase compounds. The application of enzymes for preparation of acylglycerols and transformation of other natural products provides big advantage in comparison with employing of conventional chemical methods: Increased selectivity, higher product purity and quality, energy conservation, elimination of heavy metal catalysts, and sustainability of the employed processes, which are catalyzed by enzymes. Two general procedures are used in the transformation of lipid-like natural products: (a) Hydrolysis/alcoholysis of triacylglycerols and (b) esterification of glycerol. The reactions can be performed under conventional conditions or in supercritical fluids/ionic liquids. Enzyme-catalyzed reactions in supercritical fluids combine the advantages of biocatalysts (substrate specificity under mild reaction conditions) and supercritical fluids (high mass-transfer rate, easy separation of reaction products from the solvent, environmental benefits based on excluding organic solvents from the production process).
Highlights
Plant products with low polarity are mainly understood to be represented by plant lipids, formed by glycerides, important sources of fatty acids (FAs), and by compounds soluble in lipid phase
Another process of industrial importance has been the hydrolysis of vegetable oils to enrich them with free fatty acids (FFAs) [32,33,34], especially polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), which have been of considerable pharmaceutical interest due to their biomedical properties
Candida antarctica lipase B exhibits a very small lid and a funnel-like binding site; (c) Lipases corresponding to the Candida rugosa family, characterized by the presence of active sites at the ends of tunnels containing the lids in their external parts [87]
Summary
Plant products with low polarity are mainly understood to be represented by plant lipids, formed by glycerides, important sources of fatty acids (FAs), and by compounds soluble in lipid phase (phytosterols, vitamins etc.). Increasing evidence indicates that even if LA and ALA can be converted into their longer chain length metabolites, the conversion rate in humans is very slow, resulting in an estimated 2 to 10% of ALA being converted to DHA or EPA, and may be negatively affected by increasing age and any health injury [1,2]. This finding is a basis for a general suggestion that EFAs are likely to be dietary additives. 3 series of leukotrienes δ5-desaturase oxygenase icosapentaenoic acid (IPA, 20:5n-3)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
