Preparation of arabinoxylobiose from rye xylan using family 10 Aspergillus aculeatus endo-1,4-ß-d-xylanase

Commercial xylanase preparation Shearzyme®, which contains the glycoside hydrolase family 10 endo-1,4-ß-d-xylanase from Aspergillus aculeatus, was used to prepare short-chain arabinoxylo-oligosaccharides (AXOS) from rye arabinoxylan (AX). A major AXOS was formed as a hydrolysis product. Longer AXOS were also produced as minor products. The pure GH10 xylanase from A. aculeatus was used as a comparison to ensure that the formed AXOS were consequence of the endoxylanase`s function instead of some side enzymes present in Shearzyme. The major AXOS was purified and the structure confirmed with various analysis methods (TLC, HPAEC-PAD, MALDI-TOF-MS, and one- and two-dimensional NMR spectroscopy with nano-probe) as ¿-l-Araf-(1 ¿ 3)-ß-d-Xylp-(1 ¿ 4)-d-Xylp (arabinoxylobiose). This is the first report on 13C NMR data of pure arabinoxylobiose. The yield of arabinoxylobiose was 12% from the quantified hydrolysis products. In conclusion, GH10 endoxylanase from A. aculeatus is thus able to cut efficiently the xylosidic linkage next to the arabinofuranosyl-substituted xylose unit which is not typical for all the GH10 endoxylanases. Interestingly, pure A. aculeatus xylanase showed notably activity towards p-nitrophenyl-ß-d-xylopyranose. In previously studies longer AXOS have been produced with Shearzyme but the formation of short-chain AXOS by A. aculeatus GH10 xylanase has not been studied before. Keywords: Arabinoxylan; Arabinoxylobiose; Aspergillus aculeatus; Glycoside hydrolase family 10; Shearzyme; Xylanase; Xylo-oligosaccharides