Purification and Partial Characterization of Intracellular Fructosyltransferase from a Novel Strain of Aureobasidium pullulans

The intracellular fructosyltransferase (FTase) of a novel strain of Aureobasidium pullulans (CFR 77) capable of producing 59% of fructooligosaccharides (FOS) within 9 h of reaction time was obtained by wet-milling, and then purified and characterized.The purified FTase revealed 2 bands of 147 and 170 KD; its activity was optimum at an approximate pH of 5.0 and temperature of 55 °C. The specific activity of the final purified material was 42, representing a purification factor of 79.44 and yield of 43%.The enzyme is very stable, retaining more than 80% of its original activity at the optimum reaction conditions after 12 h. Using the crude intracellular FTase, 59% of FOS was produced within 9 h of reaction time, which is a considerable reduction in the reaction time of 12-25 h that has been reported in the literature. The purified FTase yielded 59% of FOS within 3 h of reaction time.