ABSTRACT
Sucrose, the most abundant disaccharide in Nature, contains glucose and fructose. In most of the plants sucrose accumulates in the leaves or gets stored in developing fruits, seeds, roots and tubers. Sucrose-converting enzymes belong either to glycoside hydrolase family or glycosyl transferase family. The fermentation of sucrose-rich substrates to alcoholic beverages, lactic acid and glycerol requires the use of invertase. The biochemical characterization of sucrose synthase enzyme has been done by recombinant expression of the gene responsible for the enzyme from plants and cyanobacteria in microorganisms, such as Escherichia coli and S. cerevisiae. Sucrose synthase is present in most of the plants and plays an important role in the plant carbohydrate metabolism. The natural sucrose isomers have glycosidic bonds between anomeric carbon of glucose and non-anomeric carbon of fructose moiety, resulting in five reducing disaccharides with individual properties having advantages over sucrose for some applications. Enzymatic hydrolysis and isomerization of sucrose lead to production of fructooligosaccharides and other valuable products.
