a-Galactosidase was purified from a fresh fruiting body of Ganoderma lucidum by precipitation with ammonium sulfate and column chromatographies with DEAE-Sephadex and Con A-Sepharose. The purified enzyme was homogeneous on polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Its N-terminal amino acid sequence was similar to that of Mortierella vinacea alpha-galactosidase. The molecular mass of the enzyme was about 56 kDa by SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, and about 249 kDa by gel filtration column chromatography. The optimum pH and temperature were 6.0 and 70degreesC, respectively. The enzyme was fully stable to heating at 70degreesC for 30 min. It hydrolyzed p-nitrophenyl-alpha-D-galactopyranoside (K-m = 0.4 mm) but hydrolyzed little o-nitrophenyl-alpha-D-galactopyranoside. It also hydrolyzed melibiose, raffinose, and stachyose. The enzyme catalyzed the transgalactosylation reaction which synthesized melibiose. The product was confirmed by various analyses.

Alpha-galactosidase was purified from a fresh fruiting body of Ganoderma lucidum by precipitation with ammonium sulfate and column chromatographies with DEAE-Sephadex and Con A-Sepharose. The purified enzyme was homogeneous on polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Its N-terminal amino acid sequence was similar to that of Mortierella vinacea alpha-galactosidase. The molecular mass of the enzyme was about 56 kDa by SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, and about 249 kDa by gel filtration column chromatography. The optimum pH and temperature were 6.0 and 70 degrees C, respectively. The enzyme was fully stable to heating at 70 degrees C for 30 min. It hydrolyzed p-nitrophenyl-alpha-D-galactopyranoside (Km=0.4 mM) but hydrolyzed little o-nitrophenyl-alpha-D-galactopyranoside. It also hydrolyzed melibiose, raffinose, and stachyose. The enzyme catalyzed the transgalactosylation reaction which synthesized melibiose. The product was confirmed by various analyses.

This research was conducted to increase the value of shrimp shell waste and cope with the environmental problem through production of anti- Penicillium digitatum substances. Infection by P.digitatum is the main problem of orange postharvest. A total seventy microbial isolates were screened from Japanese natto, Thai fermented soybean and stock cultures.Those isolates were maintained on an agar medium containing shrimp shell waste and examined by spot test and cylinder plate methods for the inhibitory effect on P.digitatum. Bacterial isolates PP10 from dried Thai fermented soybean, showed the highest inhibitory effect in chitin broth . Its morphological, biochemical and 16S rRNA analysis indicated that this organism is Bacillus subtilis and thermotolerant. The most suitable condition was cultured in chitin broth, pH 7.0 in 125 ml Erlenmeyer flask supplemented with 10 % glucose. The medium was inoculated with 0.5 ml of the starter inoculum, which had a concentration equal to McFarland No. 3, and was inoculated at 37 °C for 2 days. It was found that the filtrate from this condition could inhibit P.digitatum 83 %. The exochitinase was 0.0031 U/ml; specific activity was 0.016 U/mg protein. The inhibitory effect for the germination of P.digitatum spores was 63 % after incubation at 25 °C for 24 hours.