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Metabolic engineering pathways for rare sugars biosynthesis, physiological functionalities, and applications—a review

ABSTRACT Biomolecules like rare sugars and their derivatives are referred to as monosaccharides particularly uncommon in nature. Remarkably, many of them have various known physiological functions and biotechnological applications in cosmetics, nutrition, and pharmaceutical industries. Also, they can be exploited as starting materials for synthesizing fascinating natural bioproducts with significant biological activities. Regrettably, most of the rare sugars are quite expensive, and their synthetic chemical routes are both limited and economically unfeasible due to expensive raw materials. On the other hand, their production by enzymatic means often suffers from low space-time yields and high catalyst costs due to hasty enzyme denaturation/degradation. In this context, biosynthesis of rare sugars with industrial importance is receiving renowned scientific attention, across the globe. Moreover, the utilization of renewable resources as energy sources via microbial fermentation or microbial metabolic engineering has appeared a new tool. This article presents a comprehensive review of physiological functions and biotechnological applications of rare ketohexoses and aldohexoses, including D-psicose, D-tagatose, L-tagatose, D-sorbose, L-fructose, D-allose, L-glucose, D-gulose, L-talose, L-galactose, and L-fucose. Novel in-vivo recombination pathways based on aldolase and phosphatase for the biosynthesis of rare sugars, particularly D-psicose and D-sorbose using robust microbial strains are also deliberated.