The Development History of Trehalose

What is trehalose?

Trehalose is a safe and stable natural sugar that is widely present in many edible plants, animals, and microorganisms in nature. Mushrooms, honey, seaweed, and fermented foods all contain high levels of trehalose. Some even contain up to 20% of trehalose in dry weight, and its properties are very stable.

What is the function of trehalose?

The most amazing biological function of trehalose is its superior resistance protection. Many species of organisms that show extraordinary tolerance in adverse environments such as dry dehydration, high temperature, freezing, and high osmotic pressure are directly attributed to the synthesis and accumulation of large amounts of trehalose in their bodies.

For example, the juniper inhabiting the cliff has the ability to enter a "false death" state when it is dry and lacking in water. When it receives enough water, it absorbs a large amount of water and recovers. Similarly, the wood frog in northeastern China is frozen into a frog-shaped ice stick under severe cold in winter, but when the temperature rises the following year, its body thaws, and its heart recovers its beating, becoming lively again.

Trehalose plays such an important role in nature that people generously praise it as the "sugar of life", "sugar of dreams", and "sugar of miracles" in the 21st century.

History of trehalose development

Trehalose was first discovered by Wiggers in 1832. He was studying the fungus of rye and found some colorless, slightly sweet, non-reducing crystals on the container wall after leaving the solution still for a period of time. He believed that these were crystals of a new sugar.

In 1990, Lama et al. in Italy discovered for the first time that enyzmes from a thermophilic bacterium named Sulfolobus sulfataricus could directly convert starch into trehalose at higher temperatures, signifying the beginning of the era of enzymatic conversion for large-scale production of trehalose.

In 1995, Japan became the first country to introduce enzymatic trehalose products. Since then, trehalose has been widely used in pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and the food industry.

As of 2006, Japan was the main producer and consumer of trehalose, with more than 6,000 types of foods containing trehalose, covering almost the entire food industry. Trehalose has entered into homes of millions of families.

China also achieved industrial production of trehalose through enzymatic methods in 2002, sparking a trend of using trehalose in biological preparations, cosmetics, and food processing.

Preliminary interest in trehalose originated from the hidden-life phenomena in nature. There exists a type of hidden life in nature that can shed 99% of its body water in extremely dry conditions and survive for many years or even decades without dying, maintaining a physiological state of pseudo-death, and can be revived once conditions are favorable.

Studies have shown that many biological species display extraordinary resistance to adverse environments such as hunger, high temperature, freezing, dryness, high osmotic pressure, radiation, and toxins, and their trehalose content in their bodies is directly related to this.