Introduction & Objective: In recent years, microorganisms have been applied as biocatalysts for making pharmaceutically natural products. Microbial biotransformation of caffeine suggests a dual approach for biodegradation of toxic caffeine from polluted environments and a method for the production of medically and pharmaceutically valuable dimethylxanthines. The present work describes the identification of native yeasts capable of biotransformation of caffeine into theophylline and paraxanthine.

Materials & Methods: In this experimental study fourteen yeast strains which were able to de-grade caffeine isolated based on their morphology were selected as biocatalysts for biotrans-formation of caffeine as a low-cost substrate to high value added dimethylxanthines such as theophylline and theobromine. The selected strains were characterized based on phenotypic and genetic tests. Screening was performed by Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC) and High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) analyses.

Results: The results obtained using TLC and HPLC analyses suggest formation of two main metabolites of theophylline and paraxanthine from biotransformation of caffeine under resting cells of Rhodotorula sp. CW03 (GenBank accession number KF414531). The results showed that under resting cell conditions a maximum concentration of theophylline 380 mg/l (molar yield of 16.4%) and paraxanthine 880 mg/l (molar yield of 37.9%) were obtained after 72 h and 120 h of conversion time, respectively.

Conclusion: In the current investigation, done for the first time in Iran, we describe the isola-tion and identification of yeast strains with caffeine degradation ability which can be proposed as safe and cost-effective biocatalysts in production of value added dimethylxanthines from caffeine as a low-cost substrate.