Walking a Fine Line with Sucrose Phosphorylase: Efficient Single‐Step Biocatalytic Production of l ‐Ascorbic Acid 2‐Glucoside from Sucrose

The 2‐ O ‐α‐ d ‐glucoside of l ‐ascorbic acid (AA‐2G) is a highly stabilized form of vitamin C, with important industrial applications in cosmetics, food, and pharmaceuticals. AA‐2G is currently produced through biocatalytic glucosylation of l ‐ascorbic acid from starch‐derived oligosaccharides. Sucrose would be an ideal substrate for AA‐2G synthesis, but it lacks a suitable transglycosidase. We show here that in a narrow pH window (pH 4.8–6.0, with sharp optimum at pH 5.2), sucrose phosphorylases catalyzed the 2‐ O ‐α‐glucosylation of l ‐ascorbic acid from sucrose with high efficiency and perfect site‐selectivity. Optimized synthesis with the enzyme from Bifidobacterium longum at 40 °C gave a concentrated product (155 g L −1 ; 460 m m ), from which pure AA‐2G was readily recovered in ∼50 % overall yield, thus providing the basis for advanced production. The peculiar pH dependence is suggested to arise from a “reverse‐protonation” mechanism in which the catalytic base Glu232 on the glucosyl–enzyme intermediate must be protonated for attack on the anomeric carbon from the 2‐hydroxyl of the ionized l ‐ascorbate substrate.