Sophorose

Bifidobacterium adolescentis ATCC15703, isolated from the intestine of an adult, was purchased from BeNa Culture Collection. The p-nitrophenyl glycoside derivatives, including p-nitrophenyl-β-D-glucopyranoside (pNPβGlc), p-nitrophenyl-α-D-glucopyranoside (pNPαGlc), p-nitrophenyl-β-D-galactopyranoside (pNPβGal), p-nitrophenyl-α-D-galact opyranoside (pNPαGal), p-nitrophenyl-β-D-xylopyranoside (pNPβXyl), p-nitrophenyl-α-D-xylopyranoside (pNPαXyl), p-nitrophenyl-α-L-arabinofuranoside (pNPαAraf), and p-nitro phenyl-α-L-arabinopyranoside (pNPαArap), were purchased from Yuanye Bio-Technology Co., Ltd. (Shanghai, China). The other chemicals, including sophorose, laminaribiose, cellobiose, gentiobiose, Rb1, and Rd, were purchased from Solarbio Science & Technology Co., Ltd. (Beijing, China).

Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3) used in this study was purchased from Beinuo Biotech (Shanghai, China). The plasmid pET-28a (+) used as an expression vector was purchased from GenScript (Nanjing, China). The ginsenoside standards of Rb₁, Rb₂, Rc, Rd, Re, Rg₁, F₂, C-K, C-Mc1, and C-Mc purchased from Chengdu Herbpurify (Chengdu, China) were chromatographic grade. pNP-α-Af, pNP-α-Ap, pNP-α-Rp, pNP-β-Glc, gentiobiose, and sophorose were purchased from Solarbio Science (Beijing, China). All other reagents were analytical grade.