Improvement of covalent immobilization procedure of β‐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 β‐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 °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. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog. , 33:1568–1578, 2017