Patent ID: 7754454

Claim:
A process for producing a sulfur-containing α-hydroxycarboxylic acid compound represented by the formula (2): wherein R 1 represents a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group having 1 to 8 carbon atoms or an aryl group having 6 to 20 carbon atoms, which comprises a step for reacting a sulfur-containing dihydroxy compound represented by the formula (1): wherein R 1 is as defined above, with a cell or a material from a treated cell of a microorganism that has an ability to convert the sulfur-containing dihydroxy compound to a corresponding α-hydroxycarboxylic acid compound, wherein the microorganism is at least one kind of microorganism selected from the group consisting of genus Alcaligenes , genus Bacillus , genus Pseudomonas , genus Rhodobacter and genus Rhodococcus.