ABSTRACT
Fructose and glucose units produced from sucrose can be transformed to various acceptors by the transfructosylation and transglycosylation reactions, respectively using various sucrose-transforming enzymes. Inulosucrases have been isolated from plants, fungi and bacteria. Fungal inulosucrases have high specificity to low molecular weight inulin, low hydrolytic activity and high stability. Using fructosyl donor like sucrose and a series of mono-, di-, tri-, oligo-saccharides, as well as sugar and aliphatic alcohols as fructosyl acceptors, levan sucrase can produce a wide range of products with different applications. Plant fructan biosynthesis initiated by sucrose, sucrose 1-fructosyl transferase irreversibly transfers fructosyl group from one sucrose to another, resulting in the formation of glucose and 1-kestose. Sucrose, the most abundant disaccharide in Nature can be converted to a wide range of useful products by the action of various sucrose-transforming enzymes produced by both plants and microbes. Sucrose phosphorylase is an attractive enzyme for glycosylation due to its broad acceptor promiscuity.
