UC Davis

Excess sugar consumption is an undisputed primary cause of type 2 diabetes. Alternative sweeteners have since been developed to counteract this issue, however some products such as artificially produced sweeteners are unfavored due to underlying health impacts and taste profile. In its place, rare sugars as have grown commercial interest as an alternative sweetener and psicose is top candidate. Psicose is a rare sugar with virtually zero calories since it is not metabolized after consumption. Current psicose manufacturing processes, due to thermodynamic limitations, are not cost efficient and produce low psicose yields. This study proposes an alternative pathway in which thermodynamic limitations are overcome to produce higher theoretical yields. Two key enzymes, a phosphatase and epimerase, are required for the proposed pathway. This study screens several enzymes, obtained from computational methods, for positive activity toward specific substrates present in the proposed psicose production pathway.