Sucrose metabolism in Zymomonas mobilis: production and localization of sucrase and levansucrase activities

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Abstract
The sucrase and levansucrase activities of Zymomonas mobilis cells were characterized. The kinetics of production of sucrase activity was growth associated and the activity was constitutively expressed in cells grown on sucrose, glucose, or fructose media. Most of the sucrase activity (about 80%) was soluble and extracellular, while the cellular activity (about 20%) was demonstrated to be mostly membrane bound. The occurrence of sucrase activity in culture medium seemed to result from a secretory mechanism rather than from cell lysis. Like sucrase activity, levansucrase activity was mainly extracellular and was present in fermentations run with the above three carbon sources. These results demonstrated that both sucrase and levansucrase activities were present in cellular and extracellular extracts of cells grown on different sugars.