생물학적 방법을 통한 기능성 이당 lactulose의 생산과 응용 연구

Abstract

Lactulose (4-O-β-D-galactopyranosyl-D-fructose) is a non-digestible synthetic ketose disaccharide which can used in food and pharmaceutical fields due to its useful functions for encephalopathy, chronic constipation, hyperammonemia, etc. Therefore, the lactulose is regarded as one of the most important disaccharides and have been concentrated much interesting as an attractive functional material in the current industry. From this reason, the research related on the production of lactulose has been carried out various academic and industrial research groups. To produce lactulose, two main methods, chemical production and enzymatic production have been used. Commercially lactulose produced by alkaline isomerization of lactose as chemical production method but it has many disadvantages such as rapid lactulose degradation, purification, and waste management. From these reasons, lactulose produced by enzymatic method which solves these problems has been suggested as a proper method for lactulose production. Two different enzymatic methods have been reported as methods for lactulose production. Lactulose can be obtained through hydrolysis and transfer reaction catalyzed by a β-galactosidase which requires fructose as co-substrate and exhibits a low conversion. Alternatively, lactulose can be produced by direct isomerization of lactose to lactulose catalyzed by cellobiose 2-epimerase which requires lactose as a single substrate and achieves a high lactulose yield. This review summarizes the current state of lactulose production by chemical and biological methods.