The extract from fifty kinds of fruits and vegetables was fermented to produce a new beverage. The fermented beverage showed scavenging activity against 1,1´ diphenyl 2 picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical, and reduced significantly the ethanol induced damage of gastric mucosa in rats.
1)We have previously examined the production of novel saccharides in a fermented beverage of plant extract, suchFurthermore, these saccharides have been confirmed to be produced by fermentation.Palatinose is known as a disaccharide composed of glucose and fructose as well as O β D fructopyranosyl (2 6) D glucopyranose. Palatinose is about half as sweet as sucrose, and is hydrolyzed by isomaltase. 4) In the present work, we investigated some characteristics of O β D fructopyranosyl (2 6) D glucopyranose (saccharide 1) from a fermented beverage of plant extract to compare with those of palatinose.Preparation of the beverage was described previously.
1)In brief, plant juice extracted by sucrose was incubated for 7 days at 37 C in darkness by using yeast and lactic acid bacteria. Then, the fermented extract was kept at 37 C during 6 to 10 months for additional maturation and aging. The time course of the formation of saccharide 1 by fermentation was measured (Fig. 1). An amount of the saccharide was determined by HPLC with p aminobenzoic acid ethyl ester (ABEE) conversion method. 5,6) The formation of the saccharide was significantly slow at the beginning of fermentation. The production of the saccharide reached its maximum after 48 days' fermentation. Then, the amount of the saccharide gradually decreased. Saccharide 1 was considered to be used as the substrate for production of other saccharides, which have higher degrees of polymerization.Isolation of saccharide 1 was carried out according to the method of a previous paper.2) The plant extract (100 g) was loaded onto a carbon Celite column. These chromatographic procedures were carried out ten times. Subsequently, the saccharide was successfully purified repeatedly using a preparative HPLC system (Tosoh, Tokyo, Japan) equipped with an Amide 80 column (Fig. 2) and ODS 80Ts column. Finally, purified saccharide 1 (980 mg) was obtained as a white powder. The structure of the isolated saccharide was confirmed by MALDI TOF MS and NMR measurements (data not shown). The yield and purity of saccharide 1 were 49 and 98%, respectively.The degree of sweetness was measured according to the method of Takenaka et al .7) The degree of sweetness of sucrose solutions ranging from 1.0 to 2.5% (w v) concentration at intervals of 0.5% was compared at room temperature with that of 10% saccharide 1 by 8 panelists.At the degree of sweetness corresponding to 10% (w v) saccharide 1, two panelists chose 1.5% sucrose, four panelists chose 2.0% sucrose and two panelists chose 2.5% sucrose. Therefore, saccharide 1 had about 0.2 times the sweetness of sucrose.Stability during heating was investigated as follows: a 50 mM acetate buffer (pH 3, 4 and 5) containing 4% (w J. Appl. Glycosci., 55, 179 182 (2008) ! C 2008 The ...