Characterization and cloning of oxygen-tolerant hydrogenase from Klebsiella oxytoca HP1

Abstract

Hydrogenase from a hot spring bacterium Klebsiella oxytoca HP1 was purified and found to have a specific activity of 199.8 U/mg of protein and a yield of 7.3%. The purified enzyme was determined to consist of six subunits (65, 33, 28, 23, 21 and 18 kDa), similar to hydrogenase-3 from Escherichia coli, and therefore it was named Hyd3. The enzyme displayed remarkable oxygen tolerance. For the purified enzyme, 50% maximal activity was maintained following incubation for 24 h in air at room temperature. The hydrogenase gene cluster ( hyc) was cloned and found to consist of hycD, hycE, hycF, hycdG, hycH and hycI genes. hycE and hycG genes encode for the large and small subunit of the hydrogenase, respectively. A hycE gene deletion mutant, ΔhycE, was constructed for elucidating the function of the hyc-operon in hydrogen metabolism. Compared with the wild type strain HP1, the mutant strain showed a dramatic decrease in hydrogen production in the presence of formate, sodium pyruvate and glucose under O 2-stressed conditions, while substantial activity was detected under anaerobic conditions. This strongly suggests that K. oxytoca HP1 carries a number of hydrogenases or hydrogen metabolic pathways independently of Hyd3. However, Hyd3 is the main factor responsible for hydrogen production under O 2 stress conditions.