Recent advancements in mogrosides: A review on biological activities, synthetic biology, and applications in the food industry

Mogrosides are low-calorie, biologically active sweeteners that face high production costs due to strict cultivation requirements and the low yield of monk fruit. The rapid advancement in synthetic biology holds the potential to overcome this challenge. This review presents mogrosides exhibiting antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, anti-diabetic, and liver protective activities, with their efficacy in diabetes treatment surpassing that of Xiaoke pills (a Chinese diabetes medication). It also discusses the latest elucidated biosynthesis pathways of mogrosides, highlighting the challenges and research gaps in this field. The critical and most challenging step in this pathway is the transformation of mogrol into a variety of mogrosides by different UDP-glucosyltransferases (UGTs), primarily hindered by the poor substrate selectivity, product specificity, and low catalytic efficiency of current UGTs. Finally, the applications of mogrosides in the current food industry and the challenges they face are discussed.