Patent ID: 8008058

Claim:
A purified ketose-3-epimerase which has the following substrate specificity: (i) epimerizing a hydroxyl group at the C-3 position of a D- or L-ketohexose to form the corresponding D- or L-ketohexose; (ii) epimerizing a hydroxyl group at the C-3 position of a D- or L-ketopentose to form the corresponding D- or L-ketopentose; and (iii) more readily epimerizes D-fructose to D-psicose, or vice versa, than it does D-tagatose to D-sorbose, or vice versa; said ketose 3-epimerase comprising an amino acid sequence which is at least 90% identical to the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO: 2.