Gastrodin is the important ingredients of Gastrodia elata Blume owing to its important pharmacological properties. The aim of the current research is to introduce one-step microbial bioconversion of p-2-hydroxybenzyl alcohol (HBA) to gastrodin instead of chemical synthesis. The method of gastrodin measurement was firstly constructed. Structural elucidation of biotransformed compounds was based on one-dimensional and two-dimensional NMR. Nine resting-filamentous cells suspension are screened for their transforming capabilities to produce gastrodin. The microorganisms used were Armillaria luteovirens Sacc (CGMCC no. 1884), Aspergillus foetidus ZU-G1 (CGMCC no. 1628), Peniciuium cyclopium AS 3.4513, Aspergillus niger AS 3.40, A. niger AS 3.429, Trichoderma viride AS 3.4005, Trichoderma sp., Penicillium notatum, Mucor sp., Rhizopus sp. A. luteo-virens Sacc U-(10) gave the highest gastrodin concentration. The optimized bioconversion conditions for A. luteo-virens Sacc U-(10) consisted of inoculums size 160.0+/-10.5 g resting cells/L, amounts of precursor (HBA) 10.0 mg/ml, bioconversion system pH 6.0, 1 % (v/v) Tween 80 or 0.1 % oleic acid, bioconversion temperature 23 degrees C, shaking speed 120 rpm in darkness. Under the optimized transformation conditions, the highest gastrodin concentration was 750 +/- 38 mu g/100 ml at 5 days. The results of current study cannot only apply to replace the chemical synthesis process that involves the glycosylation reaction, but also apply to scale-up production. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.