Microbial Biotransformation of α-ionol

Ionols are important flavour and fragrance compounds both in natural and synthetic aroma blends that are used in many daily products. α-Ionol has been converted for the first time to 3-oxo-α-ionone by microbial biotransformation using the plant pathogenic fungi Aspergillus niger NRRL 326 and Fusarium culmorum (freshly isolated) over 7 d at 25°C at 6.6 and 15.3% yield, respectively. The structure of the metabolite, which was purified by column chromatography, was elucidated by FTIR, GC-MS and NMR studies.