When lactose is used as a substrate, galacto- oligosaccharides are products of the transgalactosylase activity. Galacto-oligosaccharides enhance growth of health-promoting Bifidobacterium that may be used in a number of applications in the diary industry.

Background of the invention The genus Bífídobacterium is one of the most commonly used types of bacteria cultures in the diary industry for fermenting a variety of diary products. Ingestion of Bifidobacterium-containing products furthermore has a health-promoting effect. This effect is not only achieved by a lowered pH of the intestinal contents but also by the ability of Bifidobacterium to repopulate the intestinal flora in individuals who have had their intestinal flora disturbed by for example intake of antibiotics. Bifidobacterium furthermore has the potential of outcompeting potential harmful intestinal micro-organisms.

Galacto-oligosaccharides are known to enhance the growth of Bifidobacterium. This effect is likely achieved through the unique ability of Bifidobacterium to exploit galacto-oligosaccharides as a carbon source. Dietary supplement of galacto-oligosaccharides is furthermore thought to have a number of long-term disease protecting effects. For example, galacto-oligosaccharide intake has been shown to be highly protective against development of colorectal cancer in rats (Wijnands, et al., 1999). There is therefore a great interest in developing cheap and efficient methods for producing galacto-oligosaccharides for use in the industry for improving dietary supplements and dairy products.

The enzyme P-galactosidase (EC 3.2.1.23) usually hydrolyses lactose to the monosaccharides D-glucose and D-galactose. In the normal enzyme reaction of ß- galactosidases, the enzyme hydrolyses lactose and transiently binds the galactose monosaccharide in a galactose-enzyme complex that transfers galactose to the hydroxyl group of water, resulting in the liberation of D-galactose and D-glucose. However, at high lactose concentrations some (3-galactosidasees are able to transfer galactose to the hydroxyl groups of D-galactose or D-glucose in a process called transgalactylation whereby galacto-oligosaccharides are produced.

Enzymes capable of transgalactosylation have been isolated from a wide range of micro-organisms, including bacteria and yeasts. The observation that galacto- oligosaccharides enhance the growth of health-promoting Bifidobacterium has stimulated investigations of Bifidobacterium and their P-galactosidase enzymes. Two DNA sequences of B. breve and B. longum P-galactosidase

genes have been deposited in GeneBank (accession numbers E5040 and AJ242596, respectively). Dumortier et al.

(1994) have reported that B. bifidum DSM 20215 contains three a-galactosidases and one of these enzymes has trans-galactosylating properties. However, no identification of the enzyme possessing this activity or any sequence of the enzyme or the corresponding gene from B. bifidum DSM 20215 has been published.

Production of galacto-oligosaccharides by the use of galactosidases has been reported in several papers. For example, a-galactosidase from E. coli has been shown to produce oligosaccharides at high lactose concentrations (0.5 M or approximately 20% lactose; Huber et al. 1976).

Various thermophilic microorganisms have been shown to produce oligosaccharides at high temperatures and high lactose concentrations, e. g. Sterigmatomyces elviae can produce 39% oligosaccharides from 20% lactose at 60°C (Onishi & Tanaka, 1995), and Saccharopolyspora rectivirgula can synthesize 41% oligosaccharides in 1.75 M lactose at 70°C (Nako et al., 1994).

However, the enzymes described above all have the drawbacks of requiring either high temperatures or high lactose concentrations or both in order to exhibit significant transgalactosylase activity. There is thus a need for developing cheaper and more efficient methods of producing galacto-oligosaccharides for use in the industry.

Summary of the invention The present invention describes a new P-galactosidase from Bifidobacterium bifidum. A truncated version of the

enzyme has surprisingly been shown to have a high transgalactosylating activity. When the truncated enzyme, or a host cell expressing the recombinant truncated enzyme is incubated with lactose under appropriate conditions, galacto-oligosaccharides are produced at a high efficientcy. Presence of galacto-oligosaccharides in diary products or other comestible products have the advantage of enhancing the growth of health-promoting Bifdobacterium in the product or in the intestinal flora of the consumer after intake of the product or both.

Brief descrition of the drawings Figure 1: OLGA5 sequence. DNA and protein sequence of the OLGA5 galactosidase from Bifidumbacterium bifidum. The signal sequence is shown in bold and the part of OLGA5 gene deleted in OLGA347 is shown in italics. The BglII site used to create the deletion is highlighted.

Figure 2: Comparison of a-galactosidase active site regions.

Alignment of regions around the catalytic Glu461 residue (highlighted) from E. coli. The sequences are identified by their database accession numbers. 6-phospho-ß- galactosidase sequences are marked with a (P).

Figure 3: Neighbour joining analysis of the alignment in Figure 1, where the Sulfolubus sequences were used as an outgroup.

Results from a bootstrap analysis (n = 100) are shown for the junctions with a value above 80.

Figure 4:

OLGA5 transgalactosylase activity. Total cell lysate of E. coli cells harbouring the OLGA5 gene in a plasmid were incubated with 0.4 M lactose at 37°C for 20 hours. A 50 Al total reaction volume contained the indicated amounts of total cell lysate. Reaction samples were analysed on a silica gel TLC plate. The plate was sprayed with Orcinol reagent to visualise the sugars.

Figure 5: C-terminal deletions of OLGA5 (3-galactosidase. A 1752 amino acid open reading frame encodes the OLGA5 (3- galactosidase, where the starting 32 amino acids likely represent a signal peptide (white box). Deletion mutants of OLGA5 were constructed using the indicated restriction sites. Lysates prepared from bacterial cultures grown over night were used for measurement of (3-galactosidase activity, and the relative results are shown to the right of the respective constructs. Restriction enzyme symbols used: BglII (B), EcoRI (E), EcoRV (V), HindIII (H), KpnI (K), NruI (N), PstI (P).

Figure 6: TLC analysis of transgalactosylase activity. Total cell lysates for the two tested deletion mutants, OLGA347 and OLGA345, were used in the indicated amounts to react with 0.4 M lactose in 50 H, 1 total volume. The reactions were incubated at 37°C for 20 hours. Samples were analysed on a silica gel TLC plate. The plate was sprayed with Orcinol reagent to visualise the sugars.

Figure 7: Oligosaccharides produced by OLGA347. The indicated amounts of OLGA347 total cell lysate were incubated with 15% lactose in a total volume of 1ll for 21 hours at 37°C.

Radioactive lactose that was labelled with 14C in the glucose C-1 position was used. Samples were separated on a TLC plate and quantitated by use of a phospho-imager.

A: Image used for measurement of 14C_ signals from lactose, glucose and galacto-oligosaccharides (GOS) spots. B: Measured 14C-signals after subtraction of background (blind lane).

Figure 8: HPLC measurement of OLGA347 enzyme reaction products.

Reactions in 10%, 20% and 40% lactose were performed using the indicated amounts of OLGA347 total cell lysate.

A total volume of 200 1 was used and the reactions were incubated at 37°C for 20 hours. Diluted samples were subjected to HPLC analysis and standard curves were used to convert the observed peak areas to concentrations (mg/ml). A: Obtained mg/ml saccharide after OLGA347 reaction with 10% lactose. B: Obtained mg/ml saccharide after OLGA347 reaction with 20% lactose. C: Obtained mg/ml saccharide after OLGA3-47 reaction with 40% lactose.

D: Plot of results from the 10% reaction. The resulting amount of galacto-oligosaccharides is calculated as the amount of lactose not recovered as glucose or galactose ("GOS").

Detailed description of the invention The first aspect of the invention concerns a new galactosidase, OLGA5 (SEQ ID NO : 1 and SEQ ID NO : 2), from Bífidobacterium bifidum that has been isolated and characterised. E. coli cells were transformed with a plasmid containing insertions consisting of PstI digested chromosomal DNA from B. bifidum. Clones with (3- galactosidase activity were selected on plates containing

a chromogenic a-galactosidase substrate. One of the positive colonies contained a plasmid with an insert of approximately 20 kb, pOLGA5 (SEQ ID NO : 1). Sequencing of the DNA sequence revealed that the deduced amino acid sequence of OLGA5 a-galactosidase (SEQ ID NO : 2) is approximately twice as long as the presently known ß- galactosidases and it furthermore shows a surprisingly low degree of sequence homology with known ß- galactosidases. Expression of recombinant OLGA5 in E. coli revealed that the enzyme, in addition to lactose hydrolysing activity, also exhibited transgalactosylating activity. The C-terminal part of the OLGA5 enzyme showed no homology to known a-galactosidases. A variety of OLGA5 C-terminal deletion mutants were subsequently constructed and the resulting enzymes were investigated for their hydrolytic and transgalactosylating activity.

A second aspect of the invention concerns deletion mutants of OLGA5, e. g. OLGA347. Out of several C-terminal deletion mutants, OLGA347 which has a 578 amino acid C- terminal deletion, showed the most pronounced increased level of oligosaccharides produced when incubated with lactose even at relatively low lactose concentrations.

The enzyme apparently transferred virtually all galactose molecules onto galactose or glucose. Deletion of the C- terminal end of OLGA5 hence converted the enzyme from a hydrolytic OLGA5 0-galactosidase to a transgalactosylating OLGA347-transgalactosidase. Unlike other transgalactosylating a-galactosidases, including the native OLGA5 enzyme, the truncated P-galactosidase

OLGA347 transfers galactose onto acceptor sugar molecules at high frequency at all lactose concentrations examined.

In one embodiement, an expression vector with an insert encoding OLGA5, OLGA342, OLGA345, OLGA347, OLGA344, or any other OLGA5 variant is used. This expression vector can be transformed into a host cell selected from the group comprising Bifidobacterium, Lactococcus, Lactobacillus, Streptococcus, Leuconostoc, Escherichia, Bacillus, Streptomyces, Saccharomyces, Kluyveromyces, Candida, Torula, Torulopsis and Aspergillus. A cell of the genus Bifidobacterium is selected from the group consisting of Bifidobacterium breve, Bifidobacterium longum, Bifidobacterium infants, Bifidobacterium bifidum and Lactococcus lactis. The cell is then cultured in a suitable culture medium under conditions permitting expression of for example an OLGA5 or an OLGA347 variant and the resulting enzyme is thereafter recovered from the culture.

In another embodiment of the invention, an OLGA5 variant is part of an expression vector, which can be transformed into any one of the above, mentioned host cells. The cell is then cultured in a suitable culture medium under conditions permitting expression of the OLGA5 variant and the resulting enzyme is thereafter recovered from the culture. The OLGA5 variant may contain any random mutation or any mutation generated by conventional molecular biology techniques. Any fragment of a mutated or a wild-type OLGA5 DNA molecule can be inserted into the expression vector. The fragment can be generated by PCR (polymerase chain reaction) or by means of any restriction sites present in the sequence or a combination of both. The procedures for generating OLGA5

variants are well known to a person skilled in the art. It is thus not critical to the present invention in which way the variant is obtained. The variants disclosed in the present text are obtained by subcloning by use of restriction sites present in the sequence.

Another aspect of the invention concerns use of one or more of the above mentioned cell types for producing a product selected from the group consisting of yoghurt, cheese, fermented dairy products, dietary supplements and probiotic comestible products. In this aspect, the technical effect of the enhanced growth of Bifidobacterium is used for improving the quality of the industrial products. Addition of galacto-oligosaccharides enhances the growth of health-promoting Bifidobacterium. Galacto-oligosaccharides produced by OLGA347 is thus much cheaper and easier to obtain compared to using native galactosidases for producing oligosaccharides.

Yet another aspect of the invention concerns the use of OLGA5, OLGA342, OLGA345, OLGA347, OLGA344 or any other OLGA5 variant or the use of any one or more of the above mentioned cell types for producing oligosaccharides. The oligosaccharides comprise, but are not limited to fructooligo-saccharides, galacto-oligosaccharides, isomalto-oligosaccharides, malto-oligosaccharides, lacto- sucrose and xylo-oligosaccharides.

In one embodiment of the invention, the oligosaccharides are produced by incubating the cell expressing the OLGA5 variant in a medium that comprises a disaccharide substrate such as for example lactulose, trehalose, rhamnose, maltose, sucrose, lactose, or cellobiose. The

incubation is carried out under conditions where oligosaccarides are produced. The cells may be part of a product selected from the group consisting of yoghurt, cheese, fermented milk products, dietary supplements, and probiotic comestible products. Alternatively, the oligo- saccharides can be recovered and subsequently be added to the product of interest before or after its preparation.

Addition of oligosaccharides enhance growth of either Bifidobacterium alone or of Bifidobacterium in a mixed culture.

In another embodiment, the oligosaccharides are produced by incubating the OLGA5 variant in a medium that comprises a disaccharide substrate such as for example lactulose, trehalose, rhamnose, maltose, sucrose, lactose, or cellobiose. The incubation is carried out under conditions where oligosaccarides are produced. The medium comprising an OLGA5 variant and lactose may be part of a product selected from the group consisting of yoghurt, cheese, fermented milk products, dietary supplements, and probiotic comestible products.

Alternatively, the oligo-saccharides can be recovered and subsequently be added to the product of interest before or after its preparation. Addition of oligosaccharides enhances growth of either Bífidobacteri um alone or of Bifidobacterium in a mixed culture.

Definitions "a-galactosidase or a fragment thereof". a-galactosidase is defined as an enzyme capable of hydrolysing lactose to the monosaccharides D-glucose and D-galactose. A fragment of the a-galactosidase comprises 5-98%, preferably 40-95%

and most preferably 55-75% of the protein and the deletion preferably concerns the C-terminal end.

A"host cell"is selected from the group consisting of: fungi, yeasts, and prokaryotes. The micro-organism is more preferably a prokaryote and most preferably a bacterium of the genus Bifidobacterium or the species E. coli.

By"oligosaccharides"is meant an oligosaccharide consisting of at least three sugar molecules. An example of an oligosaccharide, which is not meant to be limiting, is galacto-oligosaccharide. The linkages between the sugar residues of the oligosaccharide comprise but are not limited to 1-4 and 1-6 bindings.

Incubation of (3-galactosidase with lactose takes place in the presence of 0.5-60% lactose, preferably 2-30% lactose and most preferably 2-15% lactose.

Conditions of incubating 3-galactosidase with lactose are defined by performing the incubation at a temperature between 5 and 75 °C, preferably 15-45 °C, and most preferably at 37 °C. The time required for the incubation is 1-50 hours, preferably 5-40 hours and most preferably 15-25 hours.

A"comestible product"comprises a product intended for ingestion such as foods, drinks, tablets, and powders.

Examples Example 1: Isolation and characterisation of transgalactosylating galactosidase from B. bifidum. PstI digested chromosomal DNA from B. bifidum DSM 20215 was ligated into pKS plasmid (Stratagene) using standard procedures. The ligation mixture was transformed into E. coli strain MT102 defective in LacZ and a-galactosidase. ß- galactosidase producing clones were identified as blue colonies on plates containing the chromogenic ß- galactosidase substrate X-gal.

One of the blue colonies contained a plasmid with an insert of approximately 20 kb, pOLGA5. The insert was further subcloned and partly sequenced and an open reading frame encoding a putative 0-galactosidase (OLGA5 a-galactosidase) was identified (Figure 1). BLAST search showed that OLGA5 a-galactosidase showed the highest degree of homology with Streptomyces coelicolor ß- galactosidase (AL133171) and Thermoanaerobacter ethanolicus (Y08557) with 38% and 30% identity, respectively. Figure 3 shows an"identity tree"of OLGA5 and related amino acid sequences.

A detailed analysis of the amino acid sequence of OLGA5 P-galactosidase revealed that the enzyme contains a putative signal sequence at its N-terminal and that the open reading frame encodes a polypeptide of 185 kDa which is approximately twice as large as any of the presently known p-alactosidases Recombinant OLGA5 enzyme produced in E. coli was purified and N-terminal amino acid sequencing confirmed, that the signal sequence was

cleaved during expression in E. coli. SDS-PAGE confirmed the molecular weight of the OLGA5 polypeptide.

Cellular extracts of recombinant E. coli MT102 containing pOLGA5 were prepared and analysed for transgalactosylating activity. Figure 4 shows that OLGA5, in addition to lactose hydrolysing activity, also exhibited transgalactosylating activity.

Example 2 Construction of a truncated OLGA5 a-galactosidase with high transgalactosylase activity. The region of OLGA5 homologous to other ß-galactosidases is located in the N- terminal end of the protein. The C-terminal half showed no homology to any known ß-galactosidase. However, a sialidase-like galactose-binding domain was observed in the C-terminal part. The role of this C-terminal part of the OLGA5 a-galactosidase was investigated by construction of truncated deletion mutants. The hydrolytic and transgalactosylating activities of the resulting recombiant a-galactosidases were analysed.

Figure 5 shows that it was possible to delete almost one third of the OLGA5 enzyme and still retain hydrolytic activity.

When the transgalactosylating activity was analysed, similar results were obtained with extracts from E. coli containing the plasmids pOLGA5, pOLGA342, and pOLGA345.

However, extracts of cells harbouring pOLGA347 showed an increased level of oligosaccharides produced and almost no galactose. As shown in Figure 5, an extract containing the truncated OLGA347 0-galactosidase did hydrolyse lactose, but instead of transferring galactose onto

hydroxyl groups in water, the enzyme transferred virtually all galactose molecules onto galactose or glucose (or glycerol; the spot migrating slightly slower than glucose on TLC was shown by NMR to be galacto- glycerol-data not shown). In conclusion OLGA347 is a true"transgalactosylase".

Example 3 Characterisation of the transgalactosylating activity of OLGA347. Two methods were used to quantitate the transgalactosyalting activity of OLGA347 (3-galactosidase : TLC analysis of reaction mixtures containing radioactively labelled lactose and HPLC analysis after enzymatic conversion of unlabeled lactose.

Experiments with radioactivity were carried out with lactose containing the 14C_ label at the C-1 position of glucose. Since the label was in the glucose part of the disaccharide, only reaction products containing glucose were detected. Figure 7 shows the result of a transgalactosylation experiment with 15% lactose and varying amounts of OLGA347 enzyme. After separation of the reaction mixture by TLC, the plate was scanned and the radioactive spots were quantitated in a phospho- imager. At low enzyme concentrations (between 0 and 0.2 u. l of the extract), the glucose and oligosaccharide levels were almost identical, indicating that all glucose molecules were exploited as substrate in transgalactosylation reactions."Free"hydrolysed glucose appeared only at high enzyme concentratins.

In experiments with unlabelled lactose different substrate and enzyme concentrations were examined. Figure 8 shows an experiment in which 10%, 20%, and 40% lactose was used as substrate in enzyme reactions with varying concentrations of OLGA347 enzyme. The reaction mixtures were analysed with HPLC and the concentrations of lactose, glucose, galactose, and galacto-oligosaccharides were calculated. Figure 8 shows that as the enzyme concentrations goes up, the lactose concentration is decreased and the glucose concentration is increased but virtually no"free"galactose is produced, indicating that almost all galactose molecules in lactose are transferred onto another sugar. Calculations of carbohydrate concentrations measured in reactions with low enzyme concentrations, indicated that the ratio between glucose and galactose is approximately 0.1, implying that for every lactose molecule hydrolysed to free galactose and glucose, nine lactose molecules are used in transglactosylation. As seen in Figure 8, the transgalactosylation reaction is independent of lactose concentration in range from 10% to 40% lactose. The maximal yield of galacto-oligosaccharides produced in transgalactosylation reactions with 10%, 20% or 40% lactose as substrate were 39%, 44% and 37% respectively (mg of oligosaccharides produced per mg lactose added).

References Dumortier, V., Brassart, C., and Bouquelet, S. (1994) Purification and properties of a ß-D-galactosidase from Bifidobacterium bifidum exhibiting a transgalactosylation reaction. Biotechnol. Appl. Biochem. 19,341-354.

Huber, R. E., Kurz, G., and Wallenfels, K. (1976) A quantitation of the factors which affect the hydrolase and transgalactosylase acticities of a-galactosidase (E. coli) on lactose. Biochemistry, 15,1994- Nakao, M., Harada, M., Kodama, Y., Nakayama, T., Shibano, Y., and Amachi, T. (1994) Purification and haracterization of a thermostable P-galactosidase with high transgalactosylation activity from Saccharopolyspora rectivirgula. Appl. Microbiol. Biotechnol. 40,657-663.

Onishi, N and Tanaka, T. (1995) Purification and properties of a novel thermostable galactooligosaccharide- producing a-galactosidase from Sterigmatomyces elviae CBS8119. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 61,4026-4030.

Wijnands, M. V., Appel M. J., Hollanders, V. M., and Woutersen, R. A. (1999) A comparison of the effects of diatary cellulose and fermentable galacto-oligosaccharide in a rat model of colorrectal carcinogenesis: fermentable fibre confers greater protection than non-fermentable fibre in both high and low fat backgrounds.

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