Artificial naringinase system for cooperative enzymatic synthesis of naringenin

Naringinase is a kind of glycosidase that catalyzes the biotransformation of naringin into naringenin. It is a multi-compound enzyme that provides the activity of α-L-rhamnosidase and β-glucosidase. In this study, an artificial naringinase system was constructed by co-immobilizing α-L-rhamnosidase (Aspergillus oryzae FJ0123, Ao-rha) and β-glucosidase (Thermotoga maritima MSB8, Tm-glu) on magnetic silica-based chitosan microspheres (MSC). The molar ratio of enzymes and the preparation conditions were optimized for improving synergistic effect and immobilization efficiency. Under optimized conditions (the molar ratio of Ao-rha and Tm-glu, 3:1; temperature, 25 °C; glutaraldehyde concentration, 2.0%; pH, 3.0; time, 9 h), the immobilization yield and activity recovery were 61.4% and 37.3% for Ao-rha and 90.1% and 56.3% for Tm-glu, respectively. Biochemical characterization indicated that MSC-naringinase had better adaptability and stability than free enzymes. The activity of MSC-naringinase was maintained at 58.7% after 10 times of recycling. The catalytic conditions were also investigated. The cascade reactions of naringin to prunin and prunin to naringenin by using MSC-naringinase resulted in a yield of 0.62 mg/mL and a conversion rate of 96.9%, respectively, without prunin accumulation. These results indicated the great potential of MSC-naringinase as an efficient artificial naringinase system for cooperative enzymatic synthesis of naringenin.