Background: Current commercial production of isomalto-oligosaccharides (IMOs) commonly involves a lengthy multi-stage process with low yields.

Results: To improve the process efficiency for production of IMOs, we developed a simple and efficient method for production of IMOs by using enzyme cocktails composed of the recombinant Bacillus naganoensis pullulanase produced by Bacillus licheniformis, α-amylase from Bacillus amyloliquefaciens, barley bran β-amylase and a-transglucosidase from Aspergillus niger to perform simultaneous saccharification and transglycosylation to process the liquefied starch. After a reaction of 13 h, 49.09% of IMOs (calculated based on the total amount of isomaltose, isomaltotriose and panose) was produced.

Conclusions: Our proposed method using an enzyme cocktail for efficient production of IMOs offers an attractive alternative to the current process for production of IMOs.