One-step fructo-oligosaccharides production and purification

Abstract

Background Growing consumer awareness on high nutritional value ingredients and their impact in health has been raising the interest in functional food including prebiotics. Fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS) are prebiotic sugars that have been industrially produced via fermentation, by several microorganism enzymes, in two-step bioprocess. Due to enzyme activity inhibition by the high amount of glucose released during fermentation, the maximum theoretical yield obtained ranges between 55 to 60% of sucrose converted into FOS, with less than 60% of pure FOS [1]. To obtain high-content FOS we explored the use of a co-culture of Aspergillus ibericus MUM 0.349 as FOS producer strain, with Saccharomyces cerevisiae YIL162W (a yeast with the gene responsible for sucrose hydrolysis disrupted) as small saccharides removal. [...]