"Unlocking the potential of a glycolipid platform through chemical modification"

Sophorolipids are an important class of glycolipid microbial biosurfactants because of their attractive surface-active and biological properties recently resulting in industrial production. However, their commercialization has been mainly limited to household detergent applications due to the minimal structural variation that can be produced via fermentation. The amphiphilic structure and the availability of the reactive sites on the sophorolipids make them suitable candidates for chemical modification which enables the generation of sophorolipid derivatives in a fast and systematic way. The latter is crucial to obtain a fundamental understanding of the structure-activity relationship, in particular for high added-value applications. This review provides an overview of the recent developments in the chemical modification of sophorolipids and novel types of related microbial glycolipids and their targeted applications.