Sugar is a familiar and complex topic in our daily lives. From the common sucrose, fructose to the little-known D-mannose, today, we will talk about the low-key but very potential star - D-mannose.

D-mannose may sound like an unfamiliar compound name, but it is actually a natural hexose that is widely found in nature. Unlike sucrose and fructose, D-mannose is coming into the public eye with its unique sweetness and multiple health benefits. Its sweetness is about 60% of sucrose, is a low-calorie functional sugar, for the pursuit of healthy diet for modern people, is undoubtedly a good choice.

D-mannose not only tastes pleasant, but also its application value is remarkable. In the food field, it can be used as a low-calorie sweetener for the production of various healthy foods; At the same time, because of its antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and other properties, as a moisturizer and anti-aging ingredients are widely used in cosmetics. In the medical field, it has shown amazing potential, and studies have shown that D-mannose can reduce inflammatory bowel disease, treat rheumatoid arthritis, prevent asthmatic airway inflammation, and even show good results in the treatment of cancer and congenital glycosylation disorders.

In recent years, with the rapid development of biotechnology, biological method has gradually become the mainstream method of D-mannose production. This method uses biological enzymes to catalyze the reaction to convert other sugars (such as D-fructose) into D-mannose, which has the advantages of high efficiency, environmental protection and low cost.

Among many biological enzymes, D-mannose isomerase is favored because of its high catalytic capacity. However, most of the early studies used Escherichia coli as chassis cells for production, which improved production efficiency but also brought safety risks. After all, E. coli is not a food-safe strain, and the chemicals it produces pose a potential risk of endotoxin contamination. In order to solve this problem, scientists began to search for safer alternative strains. Ultimately, they chose Bacillus subtilis as the new chassis cell. Bacillus subtilis has attracted much attention because of its characteristics of non-toxic, harmless, efficient antibacterial, not easy to remain and not easy to produce drug resistance. More importantly, it has been widely Recognized as a "Generally Recognized as Safe" (GRAS) strain that meets food hygiene requirements.