"Quinic" is an adjective that describes something related to or derived from quinine, a bitter compound found in the bark of certain trees. Full definition
E. coli is well understood, and can not use quinic acid naturally as a source of carbon, so the microbe should not catalyse reactions that compete with the formation of the target acid. (newscientist.com)
Frost and his colleagues anticipate that, by expressing the gene for the dehydrogenase enzyme, they should be able to produce a microbe that can synthesise quinic acid from an appropriate starting material. (newscientist.com)
A major step in the process occurs when the microbe oxidises this molecule to 3 - hydroquinate, or DHQ, using the enzyme quinic acid dehydrogenase and an enzyme cofactor known as NAD +, commonly found in nature. (newscientist.com)