The Book of Fructans

Table of Contents

Section I: The Fundamentals 1. Fructans: The Terminology 2. Chemical and Structural-Functional Features of Fructans 3. Fructan Metabolism (Synthesis/degradation) 4. Fructans in Nature and Evolutionary Aspects 5. Microbial Fructan Production Processes 6. Enzymatic Fructan Production 7. Plant based Production of Fructans

Section II: Applications 8. The Fructan Industry 9. Agro/chemical Applications of Fructans 10. Health/ Pharmaceutical/ Cosmetic Applications of Fructans 11. Fructans in Food/Feed

Section III: Society 12. Antiviral effects of Fructans 13. Fructans, fructose and FODMAPs 14. Fructans for Life

Authors

Van den Ende, Wim Dr. Wim Van den Ende received his PhD degree in Agronomical Chemical Engineering in 1996 and currently he is working as a Professor at the Biology Department of KU Leuven University (Leuven, Belgium). He is the Principal Investigator of the Sugar Metabolism group within the Lab of Molecular Plant Biology. His research focuses on plant sugar metabolism and signalling, with focus on stress responses. He has special interest in fructan metabolism and structure-function research on fructan metabolizing enzymes. The development of fructan based priming compounds and the design of superior prebiotic fructans by newly developed enzymes are some practical applications. Recently, Dr. Wim Van den Ende studies the involvement of glycosylation in Covid-19/ACE2 receptor interactions, and the possibility of using fructans as antiviral compounds. He published over 150 peer-reviewed research articles in good journals. Toksoy Oner, Ebru Dr. Ebru Toksoy Öner received her PhD degree in Chemical Engineering in 2000 and currently she is working as a Professor at the Bioengineering Department of Marmara University (Istanbul, Turkey). She is the Principal Investigator of the Industrial Biotechnology and Systems Biology (IBSB) research group. Dr. Toksoy Öner's current research in IBSB focuses on biomaterials, functional foods and systems microbiology. Ongoing research topics are functional biosurfaces, laser-based technologies, extremophiles, fructans, levan polysaccharide, strain improvement for exopolysaccharide production, production of biopolymers form extremophiles, and optimization of fermentation processes to design high-yield production lines. Dr. Toksoy Öner has been the coordinator of several national and international projects and partner in COST Actions. She is the Member of European Federation of Biotechnology (EFB), American Nano Society (ANS), American Chemical Society (ACS), International Society for Extremophiles (ISE), Turkish Biotechnology Society and author of book chapters, reviews and over 100 peer-reviewed research articles.