Isolation and Structural Characterization of an Oligosaccharide Produced by Bacillus subtilis in a Maltose-Containing Medium

Among 116 bacterial strains isolated from Korean fermented foods, one strain (SS-76) was selected for producing new oligosaccharides in a basal medium containing maltose as the sole source of carbon. Upon morphological characterization using scanning electron microscopy, the cells of strain SS-76 appeared rod-shaped; subsequent 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis revealed that strain SS-76 was phylogenetically close to Bacillus subtilis. The main oligosaccharide fraction B extracted from the culture supernatant of B. subtilis SS-76 was purified by high performance liquid chromatography. Subsequent structural analysis revealed that this oligosaccharide consisted only of glucose, and methylation analysis indicated similar proportions of glucopyranosides in the 6-linkage, 4-linkage, and non-reducing terminal positions. Matrix-assisted laser-induced/ionization time-of-flight/mass spectrometry and electrospray ionization-based liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry/mass spectrometry analyses suggested that this oligosaccharide consisted of a trisaccharide unit with 1,6- and 1,4-glycosidic linkages. The anomeric signals in the (1)H-nuclear magnetic resonance spectrum corresponded to α-anomeric configurations, and the trisaccharide was finally identified as panose (α-D-glucopyranosyl-1,6-α-D-glucopyranosyl-1,4-D-glucose). These results suggest that B. subtilis SS-76 converts maltose into panose; strain SS-76 may thus find industrial application in the production of panose.