The Use of Natural Fatty Acids for the Biotechnological Production of Natural Flavour Compounds: Application to Ethyl trans-2,cis-4-decadienoate

Abstract

Natural flavour compounds can be obtained by a number of processes, one of the most important of which is the enzymatic conversion of natural substrates. The immobilised lipase from the yeast Candida antarctica, is capable of transesterifying Stillingia oil in the presence of ethanol, thereby producing a complex mixture of ethyl esters. The efficiency of the biotransformation step is high and lies in the region of 95%. By means of fractional distillation, the ethyl ester of trans-2,cis-4-decadienoic acid can be isolated from this mixture in approximately 5% yield and with a high degree of purity. The product thus obtained exhibits the sensory properties typical for this well-known character impact compound of the pear.