Potential Applications of Carbohydrases Immobilization in the Food Industry

Abstract

Carbohydrases find a wide application in industrial processes and products, mainly in the food industry. With these enzymes, it is possible to obtain different types of sugar syrups (viz. glucose, fructose and inverted sugar syrups), prebiotics (viz. galactooligossacharides and fructooligossacharides) and isomaltulose, which is an interesting sweetener substitute for sucrose to improve the sensory properties of juices and wines and to reduce lactose in milk. The most important carbohydrases to accomplish these goals are of microbial origin and include amylases (α-amylases and glucoamylases), invertases, inulinases, galactosidases, glucosidases, fructosyltransferases, pectinases and glucosyltransferases. Yet, for all these processes to be cost-effective for industrial application, a very efficient, simple and cheap immobilization technique is required. Immobilization techniques can involve adsorption, entrapment or covalent bonding of the enzyme into an insoluble support, or carrier-free methods, usually based on the formation of cross-linked enzyme aggregates (CLEAs). They include a broad variety of supports, such as magnetic materials, gums, gels, synthetic polymers and ionic resins. All these techniques present advantages and disadvantages and several parameters must be considered. In this work, the most recent and important studies on the immobilization of carbohydrases with potential application in the food industry are reviewed.

Immobilization of puerarin glycosidase from Microbacterium oxydans CGMCC 1788 increases puerarin transformation efficiency

“…Also, immobilization enhances enzyme specificity and activity (Pollard et al, 2007;Woodley, 2008;Garcia-Galan et al, 2011), reduces the possibility of contamination by microbes (Singh, 2008), decreases the cost of continuous production, and improves purity of the final products (D'Souza, 1999). Indeed, studies of immobilized enzymes have advanced tremendously since Tosa et al (1967) first utilized immobilized aminoacylase to achieve continuous industrial production of L-amino acids in the 1960s (Tosa et al, 1967;Xie et al, 2009;Abdelmajeed et al, 2012;Vlakh et al, 2013;Contesini et al, 2013). In this study, we utilized DEAE-52 cellulose as the carrier to adsorb and immobilize puerarin glycosidase extracted from M. oxydans CGMCC 1788 to transform puerarin.…”

Enzyme engineering (immobilization) for food applications

“…Different covalent immobilization strategies have been used to prepare stable and robust biocatalysts for use in the food industry (Husain, 2010;Contesini et al, 2013;Singh et al, 2011). For example, Barros et al (2003) have reported immobilization of cardosin A a plant protease that is present in aqueous extracts of thistle flowers (Cynara cardunculus) and have a history of use as rennets in cheesemaking (Lamas et al, 2001).…”

Role of Glutaraldehyde in Imparting Stability to Immobilized β-Galactosidase Systems

“…Several researchers have excellently and critically reviewed the importance and properties of glutaraldehyde in these applications 4,5 . Recent studies have demonstrated the utilization of glutaraldehyde pre-activated supports for imparting stability to various enzymes in food industry owing to their Generally Recognized as Safe status 6 .…”