Structural Characterization of Functional Ingredient Levan Synthesized by Bacillus siamensis Isolated from Traditional Fermented Food in Thailand

Abstract EN

The rising global population continues to threaten the world’s food security.

The discovery of new technologies to produce food of nutritional and functional properties is urgently needed.

One beneficial food to humans of known nutritional value is the prebiotic levan.

To address the problem, the present work is aimed at isolating levansucrase enzyme-producing microorganisms from traditional fermented food in Thailand.

Bacterial colony morphology was observed for mucoidal consistency on culture plates.

Isolated colonies were characterized morphologically by gram staining methods.

Dinitrosalicylic acid (DNS) and thin-layer chromatography (TLC) reported the highest microbial enzyme activity of 8.51 IU/ml at 12 hours via hydrolysis and frutotransferase activities.

Structural characterization of levan via Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and 1H and 13C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy showed β-(2,6)-fructofuranose linkages.

The highest enzyme activity was exhibited by bacterium B-6 identified as Bacillus siamensis NR 11274.1 based on the 16s rDNA gene sequence analyses.

Thus, the isolated bacterium from the traditional food was confirmed to produce levansucrase enzyme of high industrial importance for the synthesis of levan as a functional food.