Structural characterization of fucose-containing disaccharides prepared from exopolysaccharides of Enterobacter sakazakii

Abstract Fucose-containing oligosaccharides (FCOs) have important applications in the food, medicine, and cosmetics industries owing to their unique biological activities. The degradation of microbial fucose-containing exopolysaccharides (FcEPSs) is a promising strategy for obtaining FCOs, and bacteriophage-borne glycanase is a useful tool for degrading FcEPSs. Here, we aimed to obtain FCOs using bacteriophage-borne glycanase to depolymerize FcEPSs from Enterobacter sakazakii. The FcEPSs were mainly composed of l -fucose (42.72 %), d -galactose (20.59 %), and d -glucose (21.81 %). Based on the results of nuclear magnetic resonance and mass spectrometry, the obtained FCOs were disaccharide fragments with backbones of β- d -Glcp-(1→4)-β- l -Fucp and α- d -Galp-(1→3)-β- l -Fucp, respectively. So far, few studies of disaccharides prepared from FcEPSs have been reported. This study demonstrated that the FcEPSs of E. sakazakii were a reliable fucose-containing disaccharide source and that bacteriophage-borne glycanase was an effective degradation tool for obtaining FCOs fragments from FcEPS.