Turanose (3-O-a-D-glucopyranosyl-D-fructose), a structural isomer of sucrose, is a low-calorigenic and non-cariogenic disaccharide. It has a potential to be a high-quality functional sweetener, but there has been no competitive way to produce turanose as well as no available information related to its physicochemical and sensory properties. Recently, an efficient way of turanose production was developed by applying a recombinant Neisseria amylosucrase. In this study, physicochemical and sensory properties of turanose were investigated and compared to those of sucrose tagatose, erythritol, and palatinose, to examine the feasibility of turanose as a novel sucrose substitute. Turanose remained stable at 30-90 �C under pHs 7 and 3 while sucrose was easily degraded at 90�C under acidic pH. Solubility (223.5 g) of turanose at 25�C was almost identical to sucrose (224.4 g) in 100 g water, while erythritol, palatinose, and tagatose were much less soluble. Aqueous solution of turanose drastically developed brown color in the presence of glycine when heated to 120�C on pH 5.5, but sucrose solution did not show any significant change in color. Turanose displayed similar viscosity and moisture sorption-desorption curve with sucrose as determined by rheometer and by dynamic vapor sorption, respectively, within the tested temperature and concentration ranges. Relative sweetness of turanose was 0.39 as determined by 54 screened panels using 2-alternative forced choice method when compared to 5% (w/v) sucrose solution. Turanose demonstrated no significant difference in sensory bitterness, artificial/chemical flavor, astringency, irritating sensation, viscosity, and sweetness-lasting compared to sucrose, whereas erythritol and stevioside displayed greater bitterness, astringency, irritating sensation, and sweetness-lasting.

Physicochemical and sensory characteristics of novel sweetener turanose biosynthesized using amylosucrase from Neisseria polysaccharea

247th National Meeting (2014)

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