An object of the present invention is to develop a means capable of maintaining the enzymatic activity of a microorganism even in a dry state. Provided is a method for producing a dry microbial cell powder maintaining an enzyme titer, characterized by comprising adding a carbohydrate to a liquid of microbial cells having an enzymatic activity and then drying the liquid. Also provided is a dry microbial cell powder obtained by the method.

Disclosed are an agarase mutant with improved thermal stability and application thereof, belonging to the fields of genetic engineering technology and enzyme engineering. The present disclosure provides an agarase mutant, which is obtained by mutating the amino acid at the 86.sup.th site, the 373.sup.rd site, the 374.sup.th site, the 496.sup.th site, the 507.sup.th site, or the 747.sup.th site of agarase with an amino acid sequence as shown in SEQ ID NO. 1. The agarase mutant provided by the present disclosure improves the thermal stability and the hydrolytic activity of the agarase. Compared with the wild type enzyme, the mutant enzyme shows excellent heat resistance and can be industrially used at a relatively high temperature, so that the utilization rate of agar raw materials and the yield of oligosaccharides from agar are improved, and the mutant enzyme has a good industrial application prospect.

The present application relates to sialylated glycoprotein compositions and methods of their use in treating various conditions and disorders.

The present invention relates to polynucleotide constructs for in vitro and in vivo transcription/translation of genes of interest or variants of a gene of interest as well as microorganism host cells comprising such constructs and methods for producing a polypeptide of interest in such microorganism host cells.

The present application relates to sialylated glycoprotein compositions and methods of their use in treating various conditions and disorders.

A stable aqueous liquid lactase formulation is provided, comprising lactase and further comprising sodium, calcium or potassium-L-lactate or a combination thereof and optionally a sugar, and/or optionally comprising sodium or potassium chloride or a combination thereof, preferably wherein the concentration of each of the components is such that the water activity A.sub.w is at most 0.82. The formulation is particularly suitable when using invertase-free lactase, allowing the use of sucrose as stabilizer. Also provided is a process to produce the liquid lactase formulation, an infant formula (e.g. as powder of granulate) comprising the liquid lactase formulation, a method to produce said infant formula, and the use of the formulation in the production of infant formula.

Provided is a method for determining activity of arylsulfatase in an aqueous system, which comprises a step in which arylsulfatase is subjected to reaction with a substrate, from which fluorophore or chromophore is liberated by suffering an action of the arylsulfatase, in an aqueous reaction system having high ionic strength. Also, provided are a lactase preparation having a lactase activity of 4,000 NLU/g or more according to the FCC IV method and having an arylsulfatase activity of 0.1% or less of the lactase activity as the basis, in which the arylsulfatase activity has been determined by the method for determining activity of arylsulfatase in an aqueous system according to the fluorescence method of the present invention; a method for producing this preparation; and a dairy product which comprises using this preparation.

The present invention relates to a heat-resistant agarase and a monosaccharide production method using same. More particularly, in the present invention, a heat-resistant agarase may be used to produce galactose and 3,6-anhydro-L-galactose at high yield by efficiently breaking down agarose or agar without a chemical pretreatment, a neutralization process, or an agarotriose hydrolase treatment process.

The present invention relates to an enzyme complex which the following (i) to (iv) are combined: (i) chimeric beta-agarase formed by a fusion of beta-agarase and the dockerin module of endo--1,4-glucanase-B; (ii) chimeric kappa-carrageenase formed by a fusion of kappa-carrageenase and the dockerin module of endo--1,4-glucanase-B; (iii) chimeric anhydro-galactosidase formed by a fusion of anhydro-galactosidase and the dockerin module of endo--1,4-glucanase-B; and (iv) mini cellulose-binding protein A, and to a method of degrading red algal biomass using the same. According to the present invention, an enzymatic degradation process is applied for the production of agar degradation products, deviating from conventional methods that relied on physical and chemical pretreatment processes. Thus, the present invention will greatly contribute to efficiently converting marine algae into valuable products by use of a convenient, cost-effective, highly efficient and environmentally friendly degradation system while controlling the products.

The present invention relates to polypeptides, specifically polypeptides having transgalactosylating activity and nucleic acids encoding these, and their uses in e.g. dairy product.