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Hydrophilic and lipophilic characteristics of non-fatty acid moieties: significant factors affecting antibacterial activity of lauric acid esters

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A Correction to this article was published on 12 June 2018

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Abstract

It has been proposed that the hydrophilic and/or lipophilic characteristics of fatty acid derivatives affect their antibacterial activities according to their ability to incorporate into the bacterial cell membrane. To verify this hypothesis, six kinds of lauric acid derivatives esterified with different non-fatty acid moieties were selected to confirm whether antibacterial activity from their precursor (i.e., lauric acid) is retained or lost. Three compounds, monolaurin, sucrose laurate, and erythorbyl laurate, exerted bacteriostatic and bactericidal effects against Gram-positive bacteria, while the others showed no inhibitory activity. Interestingly, the calculated log P (octanol–water partition coefficient) values of monolaurin, sucrose laurate, and erythorbyl laurate were − 4.122, − 0.686, and 3.670, respectively, relatively lower than those of the other compounds without antibacterial activity. Moreover, the hydrophilic-lipophilic balance values of the three compounds with antibacterial activity were higher than those of the other compounds, corresponding to the log P result.

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  • 12 June 2018

    In the original version of these 14 articles the reference list was unfortunately not represented according to the journal’s new bibliographical style, which should have been implemented from January 2018.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT, & Future Planning (NRF-2017R1A2B4009230) and the Ministry of Education (NRF-R1A6A3A01012396).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Food Science and Biotechnology, Wonkwang University, Iksan, 54538, Republic of Korea

    Kyung-Min Park & Chang Joo Lee

  2. Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Seoul National University, Seoul, 08826, Republic of Korea

    Seon Joo Lee, Hyunjong Yu, Jun-Young Park & Pahn-Shick Chang

  3. Center for Food and Bioconvergence, Seoul National University, Seoul, 08826, Republic of Korea

    Ho-Sup Jung & Pahn-Shick Chang

  4. Institute of Advanced Machinery and Design, School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul, 08826, Republic of Korea

    Keesung Kim

  5. Research Institute of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul, 08826, Republic of Korea

    Pahn-Shick Chang

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  1. Kyung-Min Park
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Park, KM., Lee, S.J., Yu, H. et al. Hydrophilic and lipophilic characteristics of non-fatty acid moieties: significant factors affecting antibacterial activity of lauric acid esters. Food Sci Biotechnol 27, 401–409 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10068-018-0353-x

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