초록
<P>3,6-Anhydro-<SMALL>L</SMALL>-galactose (<SMALL>L</SMALL>-AHG), a major component of agarose derived from red macroalgae, has excellent potential for industrial applications based on its physiological activities such as skin whitening, moisturizing, anticariogenicity, and anti-inflammation. However, <SMALL>L</SMALL>-AHG is not yet commercially available due to the complexity, inefficiency, and high cost of the current processes for producing <SMALL>L</SMALL>-AHG. Currently, <SMALL>L</SMALL>-AHG production depends on a multistep process requiring several enzymes. Here, we designed and tested a novel two-step process for obtaining high-titer <SMALL>L</SMALL>-AHG by using a single enzyme. First, to depolymerize agarose preferentially into agarobiose (AB) at a high titer, the agarose prehydrolysis using phosphoric acid as a catalyst was optimized at a 30.7% (w/v) agarose loading, which is the highest agarose or agar loading reported so far. Then AB produced by the prehydrolysis was hydrolyzed into <SMALL>L</SMALL>-AHG and <SMALL>D</SMALL>-galactose (<SMALL>D</SMALL>-Gal) by using a recently discovered enzyme, Bgl1B. We suggest that this simple and efficient process could be a feasible solution for the commercialization and mass production of <SMALL>L</SMALL>-AHG.</P><BR>[FIG OMISSION]</BR>