Improvement of covalent immobilization procedure of -galactosidase from Kluyveromyces lactis for galactooligosaccharides production: Modeling and kinetic study

Galactooligosaccharides (GOS) are prebiotics produced from lactose through an enzymatic reaction. Employing an immobilized enzyme may result in cost reductions; however, the changes in its kinetics due to immobilization has not been studied. This study experimentally determined the optimal reaction conditions for the production of GOS from lactose by -galactosidase (EC 3.2.1.23) from Kluyveromyces lactis covalently immobilized to a polysiloxane-polyvinyl alcohol (POS-PVA) polymer activated with glutaraldehyde (GA), and to study the transgalactosylation kinetics. Yield immobilization was 99 +/- 1.1% with 78.5 +/- 2.4% enzyme activity recovery. An experimental design 24 with 1 center point and 2 replicates was used. Factors were lactose [L], enzyme concentration [E], pH and temperature (T). Response variables were glucose and galactose as monosaccharides [G1], residual lactose [Lac]r and GOS as disaccharides [G2] and trisaccharides [G3]. Best conditions were pH 7.1, 40 degrees C, 270 gL(-1) initial lactose concentration and 6 U mL(-1) enzyme concentration, obtaining 25.46 +/- 0.01 gL(-1) yield of trisaccharides. Although below the HPLC-IR detection limit, tetrasaccharides were also identified after 115 min of reaction. The immobilization protocol was then optimized by diminishing total reactant volumes : support ratio, resulting in improved enzyme activity synthesizing 43.53 +/- 0.02 gL(-1) of trisaccharides and 13.79 +/- 0.21 gL(-1) of tetrasaccharides, and after four cycles remaining relative activity was 94%. A reaction mechanism was proposed through which a mathematical model was developed and rate constants were estimated, considering a pseudo steady-state hypothesis for two concomitant reactions, and from this simplified analysis, the reaction yield could eventually be improved. (c) 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog., 33:1568-1578, 2017