Levansucrase of Bacillus subtilis.

Levansucrase of Bacillus subtilis var. saccharolyticus was purified from the supernatant of an aerobically incubated suspension of the grown cells in a dilute sucrose solution by chromatography on a column of DEAE-cellulose.The synthesis of levan by the purified enzyme resulted in most effectively at low temperatures at around 0°C, and the levan synthesized was isolated by passing the enzyme-reaction mixture through a DEAE-cellulose column followed by ethanol precipitation. The levan was isolated in the pure state (] and its molecular weight was determined to be 2x 104 by the gel filtration method.