Porungo cheese whey: b-galactosidase production, galactooligosaccharide (GOS) synthesis and prebiotic potential

Abstract

The use of agro-industrial waste associated with bioprocess has encouraged the development of new strategies to obtaining bioproducts, such as enzymes and prebiotics. Cheese whey, a rich lactose substrate, is a low-cost alternative substrate source to biomolecules production. B-galactosidase, commercially known as lactase, is an enzyme of substantial importance worldwide, being applied in a variety of processes in the food industry, among them to obtain galactooligosaccharides (GOS), which act as prebiotics. These are characterized by benefiting human health, reducing the toxic metabolism compounds formation. The project proposes to study the use of whey from porungo cheese, produced in the Southwest of São Paulo and still slight explored, to obtain the enzyme B-galactosidase and galactooligosaccharides (GOS). The work aims to obtain the enzyme, and its subsequent use in immobilized form to GOS production in fixed bed column bioreactors operated in batch and continuos system. The enzyme will be produced from K. marxianus under optimal conditions previously established by our research group. For GOS production, the enzyme partially purified will be immobilized on different immobilization supports. This production will be compared with commercial enzyme. The variables of the process, such as enzyme concentration, will be tested in a batch mode and its operational stability will be evaluated through repeated batch. The best process conditions will be used to continuous system from the study of different feed flow. The prebiotic potential of GOS will be evaluated from lactic acid bacteria isolated from Porungo cheese. (AU)