Leven is a fructose polymer of potential importance as fructose source or thickening agent in food industry and plasma expander in pharmaceutical industry. The extracellular levansucrase gene of Zymomonas mobilis ZM1 was cloned in E. coli by shot-gun ...
Leven is a fructose polymer of potential importance as fructose source or thickening agent in food industry and plasma expander in pharmaceutical industry. The extracellular levansucrase gene of Zymomonas mobilis ZM1 was cloned in E. coli by shot-gun cloning method. By the analysis of genomic librariesof Z. mobilis ZM1, 13recombinant E. coli colonies showing sucrase activity were obtained. One of these plasmids isolated from these clones was designated as pZL8 and further characterized. The plasmid pZL8 with 4.5Kb Z.mobilis ZM1 chromosomal DNA fragment inserted conferred a sucrase positive phenotype and showed transfructosylation activity(levan-like-polysaccharide formation) in minimal medium, the restriction analysis and deletion experiment revealed that levansucrase gene was included in 2.1Kb DNA fragment, polysaccharide formed in E. doli(pZL8) was identifited as leavan by TLC analysis. Electropholetic behaviour of the levansucrase produced from E. coli(pZL8) was identical to those of the extracellular levansucrase of Z. mobilis ZM1.