Discovery and Engineering of a Bacterial (+)‐Pulegone Reductase for Efficient (−)‐Menthol Biosynthesis

The biosynthesis of valuable plant-derived monoterpene (-)-menthol from readily available feedstocks (e. g., (-)-limonene) is of great significance because of the high market demand for this product. However, biotransforming (+)-pulegone into (-)-menthone, the (-)-menthol precursor, through (+)-pulegone reductase (PGR) catalysis is inefficient because of the poor protein expression or catalytic efficiency (k