Phenylpropanoids (s. figure) are phenolic compounds which cause e.g. coloration of flowers and fruits (such as the anthocyanins found in roses or blueberries) or cause the aroma of foods, such as vanillin (the major flavoring compound in Vanilla orchid seed capsules "pods") or capsaicin (the pungent principle from chili peppers). Also the praised antioxidants from plants are polyphenols, i.e phenylpropanoids in the wider sense.

Our work is focused on phenylpropanoid bioactives (compounds with taste-modifying, estrogenic, antifungal or antioxidant activity) with limited availability from natural sources, with special emphasis on “green” sustainable synthesis using biocatalysts, e.g. aromatic hydroxlases, O-methyl transferases, isoprenyl transferases, or polyketide synthases (PKS-III). Our field of expertise is the identification of a suitable enzymes by screening and mining strategies (see methodology) or protein engineering (modeling and mutagenetic optimization together with the Computational Chemistry). The tailored biocatalysts are then applied in preparative syntheses – either in in vitro cascading reactions or as whole-cell biocatalysts (s. also part of Leibniz Research Cluster). The in vivo (SynBio/synthetic biology) approach is preferable if the biosynthetic sequence harbors components with insufficient stability or cofactor delivery problems have to be addressed.