Production Of Recombinant Enzymes Research Articles

Expression and characterization of the Babesia bigemina cysteine protease BbiCPL1

BbiCPL1 was the first papain-like cysteine protease from a piroplasm to be identified with proteolytic activity. Here we report the improved production of the active recombinant enzyme, and the biochemical characterization of this potential drug target. BbiCPL1 showed characteristic properties of its class, including hydrolysis of papain-family peptide substrates, an acidic pH optimum, requirement of a reducing environment for maximum activity, and inhibition by standard cysteine protease inhibitors such as E-64, leupeptin, ALLN and cystatin. The optimum pH for the protease activity against peptide substrates was 5.5, but enzymatic activity was observed between pH 4.0 and pH 9.0. At slightly basic pH 7.5, BbiCPL1 maintained 83% of maximum activity, suggesting a role in cytosol environment.

Combined Effect of Improved Cell Yield and Increased Specific Productivity Enhances Recombinant Enzyme Production in Genome-Reduced Bacillus subtilis Strain MGB874

Genome reduction strategies to create genetically improved cellular biosynthesis machineries for proteins and other products have been pursued by use of a wide range of bacteria. We reported previously that the novel Bacillus subtilis strain MGB874, which was derived from strain 168 and has a total genomic deletion of 874 kb (20.7%), exhibits enhanced production of recombinant enzymes. However, it was not clear how the genomic reduction resulted in elevated enzyme production. Here we report that deletion of the rocDEF-rocR region, which is involved in arginine degradation, contributes to enhanced enzyme production in strain MGB874. Deletion of the rocDEF-rocR region caused drastic changes in glutamate metabolism, leading to improved cell yields with maintenance of enzyme productivity. Notably, the specific enzyme productivity was higher in the reduced-genome strain, with or without the rocDEF-rocR region, than in wild-type strain 168. The high specific productivity in strain MGB874 is likely attributable to the higher expression levels of the target gene resulting from an increased promoter activity and plasmid copy number. Thus, the combined effects of the improved cell yield by deletion of the rocDEF-rocR region and the increased specific productivity by deletion of another gene(s) or the genomic reduction itself enhanced the production of recombinant enzymes in MGB874. Our findings represent a good starting point for the further improvement of B. subtilis reduced-genome strains as cell factories for the production of heterologous enzymes.

Food‐grade gene expression in lactic acid bacteria

In the 1990s, significant efforts were invested in the research and development of food-grade expression systems in lactic acid bacteria (LAB). At this time, Lactococcus lactis in particular was demonstrated to be an ideal cell factory for the food-grade production of recombinant proteins. Steady progress has since been made in research on LAB, including Lactococcus, Lactobacillus and Streptococcus, in the areas of recombinant enzyme production, industrial food fermentation, and gene and metabolic pathway regulation. Over the past decade, this work has also led to new approaches on chromosomal integration vectors and host/vector systems. These newly constructed food-grade gene expression systems were designed with specific attention to self-cloning strategies, food-grade selection markers, plasmid replication and chromosomal gene replacements. In this review, we discuss some well-characterized chromosomal integration and food-grade host/vector systems used in LAB, with a special focus on sustainability, stability and overall safety, and give some attractive examples of protein expression that are based on these systems.

An integrated scale‐down plant for optimal recombinant enzyme production by Pichia pastoris

An integrated bioprocess was created in a scale-down production plant by developing a two-stage enzyme production process with Pichia pastoris, containing a cell-breeding reactor and a production reactor in combination with a three-stage downstream process. To harvest the secreted enzymes, a disc separator and a cross-flow microfiltration clear the broth from the cells. Purification with hydrophobic interaction chromatography removes other proteins, concentrates the product, and prepares the enzyme solution for lyophilization. Fully automated and broad observable multi-stage parallel process courses have been developed using industrial process control systems and at-line measurements for enzyme concentration and enzyme activity. Optimal process conditions were found by application of Design of Experiments (DoE) for the production process.

Effect of Silent Mutations in Translational Initial Region on the Production of Recombinant Cutinase in Escherichia coli

Translational Initial Region (TIR) is the threshold of an intracellular translation process, and tiny alterations in this region are reported to intensely influence the downstream expression. Such property provides a potential utilization in extracellular production of recombinant enzyme. As an esterase, cutinase is an essential catalyst in the process of textile scouring, and has a potential application in food and chemical industry. In the present study, a bacterial cutinase (Tfu_0883) from Thermobifida fusca was expressed in Escherichia coli with pelB as its signal peptide using trc as its promoter. A subsequent TIR degeneracy mutagenesis was then carried out in the initial sequence of pelB. A fast screening method for these mutants was developed and a series of strains with different expression strengths were accordingly obtained. Among these mutants, a high cutinase production level of 38.0 U/ml was achieved, which is three times that of the control group. This study explored the potential utilization of TIR degeneracy mutagenesis in the production of industrial enzymes.

Efficient E. coli expression systems for the production of recombinant β-mannanases and other bacterial extracellular enzymes

Two Escherichia coli expression systems based on T7 RNA polymerase promoter (pET system) and tac promoter (pFLAG system) have been used for the production and secretion of recombinant b-mannanases from Bacillus sp. Both E. coli OmpA signal peptide and native Bacillus signal peptide could be used efficiently for the secretion of recombinant enzymes into periplasmic space and culture media. The genes could be induced for over-expression with 0.1 - 1 mM isopropyl-β-D- 1-thiogalactopyranoside (IPTG) when the OD600 of the culture broth reached 0.6-1.5. The recombinant enzymes could be harvested from whole cell lysate, perimplasmic extract, or culture broth after induction for 4 - 20 hours. Since the enzyme is C-terminally tagged with hexahistidine, the recombinant enzymes could be conveniently purified to apparent homogeneity by one-step immobilized-metal affinity chromatography (IMAC) using Ni-NTA resins. The characteristics of purified recombinant b-mannanases from B. licheniformis and B. subtilis, which share 78% amino acid identity, are slightly different. These systems should be applicable for the production of various recombinant bacterial extracellular enzymes.

Protein Engineering of Penicillin Acylase

Penicillin acylases (PA) are widely used for the production of semi-synthetic β-lactam antibiotics and chiral compounds. In this review, the latest achievements in the production of recombinant enzymes are discussed, as well as the results of PA type G protein engineering.

Extracellular secretion in Bacillus subtilis of a cytoplasmic thermostable β-galactosidase from Geobacillus stearothermophilus

β-Galactosidase catalyzes the hydrolysis of β-galactosides into monosaccharides and is widely used in dairy processing. This study reports the extracellular secretion of a cytoplasmic thermostable β-galactosidase from Geobacillus stearothermophilus IAM11001 in Bacillus subtilis. This enzyme has potential applications in the dairy industry. It was not secreted in B. subtilis by mediation of 3 general secretory signal peptides, but was secreted extracellularly when it was fused to a twin-arginine signal peptide of B. subtilis phosphodiesterase. Defined and rich culture media were used for recombinant enzyme production, and the extracellular target enzymatic activity reached about 44% of the total enzymatic activity synthesized at 18h of cultivation in Luria-Bertani medium. As a control of secretion, when the signal peptide coding sequence was absent from the N terminus of the target gene bgaB, the extracellular target enzymatic activity obtained under the same condition of cultivation accounted for less than 7% of the total enzymatic activity synthesized. Results also showed that coexpression of the B. subtilis proteins TatAd and TatCd was indispensable for the secretion of the target enzyme.

Gene cloning and enzyme structure modeling of the Aspergillus oryzae N74 fructosyltransferase

The fructooligosaccharides (FOS) represent an important source of prebiotic compounds that are widely used as an ingredient in functional foods. Recently, the strain Aspergillus oryzae N74 was reported as a potential microorganism for the industrial production of FOS, due to its high yields of FOS production. In this work, we used a PCR-cloning strategy to clone the A. oryzae N74 ftase gene as a previous step for recombinant enzyme production. Ftase showed a 1630 bp size with a 99% similarity with other A. oryzae strains and between 1 to 68% identities with other Aspergillus strains. This gene encodes for a 525 amino acids protein with 99% similarity with other A. oryzae strains and between 11 to 69% similarities with other Aspergillus strains. Finally, an A. oryzae N74 FTase tertiary structure model was predicted base on its similarity with other glycoside hydrolase 32 family members. The active site was located inside the β-propeller domain and was formed for non-charged polar and charged amino acids. In summary, these results shows the high level of sequence conservation between A. oryzae strains and represent a first step towards the development of a FOS production industrial process using recombinant microorganism carrying the ftase gene from A. oryzae N74.

Secretion of an Endogenous Subtilisin by Pichia pastoris Strains GS115 and KM71

The methylotrophic yeast Pichia pastoris is widely used for the expression of heterologous enzymes. While the purity of the desired expression product is of major importance for many applications, we found that recombinant enzymes produced in methanol medium were contaminated by a 37-kDa endogenous yeast protease. This enzyme was completely inhibited by phenylmethanesulfonyl fluoride (PMSF) but not by 1,10-phenanthroline, EDTA, and pepstatin A, suggesting the nature of a serine protease. Its secretion was abolished in P. pastoris strains GS115 and KM71 by specific mutagenesis of a subtilisin gene (SUB2) but not by inactivation of the gene encoding vacuolar proteinase B (PRB). Bioinformatic comparisons of Sub2 protein with subtilisins from other fungal genomes and phylogenetic analyses indicated that this enzyme is not an orthologue of the vacuolar protease cerevisin generally present in yeasts but is more closely related to another putative subtilisin found in a small number of yeast genomes. During growth of P. pastoris, Sub2 was produced as a secreted enzyme at a concentration of 10 microg/ml of culture supernatant after overexpression of the full-length SUB2 gene. During fermentative production of recombinant enzymes in methanol medium, 1 ml of P. pastoris culture supernatant was found to contain approximately 3 ng of Sub2, while the enzyme was not detected during growth in a medium containing glycerol as a carbon source. The mutant strain GS115-sub2 was subsequently used as a host for the production of recombinant proteases without endogenous subtilisin contamination.

PHsh vectors, a novel expression system of Escherichia coli for the large-scale production of recombinant enzymes

Gene expression system Hsh is developed to increase enzyme production and to decrease the cost in the induction of gene expression in Escherichia coli. The vectors of Hsh system were constructed by combining a synthesized heat-shock promoter with a synthesized terminator and an origin of replication derived from pUC19 in which the expression of foreign genes was regulated by an alternative sigma factor, sigma(32) of E. coli. In comparison, the Hsh promoter gave a 2.4-fold higher production for xynIII gene encoding a xylanase than existing heat-shock inducible promoter p (L), 1.2-fold and 3-fold production for xar gene encoding a arabinosidase than trc and T(7) promoter, respectively. The flow-in-heat technique created a rapid rise in temperature for effective induction of gene expression in bioreactor scale.

Heterologous expression of diverse barley XTH genes in the yeast Pichia pastoris

Heterologous expression of plant genes, particularly those encoding carbohydrate-active enzymes such as glycoside hydrolases and glycosyl transferases, continues to be a major hurdle in the functional analysis of plant proteomes. Presently, there are few convenient systems for the production of recombinant plant enzymes in active form and at adequate levels for biochemical and structural characterization. The methylotrophic yeast Pichia pastoris is an attractive expression host due to its ease of manipulation and its capacity to perform post-translational protein modifications, such as N-glycosylation [Daly and Hearn (2005) J Mol Recognit 18: 119–138]. Here, we demonstrate the utility of the P. pastoris SMD1168H/pPICZ-alpha C system for the expression of a range of xyloglucan endo-transglycosylase/hydrolase (XTH) cDNAs from barley (Hordeum vulgare). Although stable transformants were readily obtained by positive selection for vector-induced antibiotic resistance for all of the nine constructs tested, only five isoforms were secreted as soluble proteins into the culture medium, four in active form. Furthermore, production levels of these five isoforms were found to be variable, depending on the transformant, which further underscores the necessity of screening multiple clones for expression of active enzyme. Failure to express certain XTH isoforms in P. pastoris could not be correlated with any conserved gene or protein sequence properties, and this precluded using rational sequence engineering to enhance heterologous expression of the cDNAs. Thus, while significant advances are reported here, systems for the heterologous production of plant proteins require further development.

Optimization of Recombinant Enzyme Production with Pichia pastoris in an Integrated Industrial Scale-down Production Plant

A scale down version of a multi component production plant, including a cell breeding reactor, a protein production reactor and a disc clarifier for enzyme separation is combined to an Integrated Bioprocess. Fully automated and global observable multistage parallel process courses are developed using industrial process control systems and atline measurements for enzyme concentration and enzyme activity. Optimal production conditions were found by application of DoE - Design of Experiment.

Expression of active human sialyltransferase ST6GalNAcI in Escherichia coli

BackgroundThe presence of terminal, surface-exposed sialic acid moieties can greatly enhance the in vivo half-life of glycosylated biopharmaceuticals and improve their therapeutic efficacy. Complete and homogeneous sialylation of glycoproteins can be efficiently performed enzymically in vitro but this process requires large amounts of catalytically active sialyltransferases. Furthermore, standard microbial hosts used for large-scale production of recombinant enzymes can only produce small quantities of glycosyltransferases of animal origin, which lack catalytic activity.Results and conclusionIn this work, we have expressed the human sialyltransferase ST6GalNAc I (ST6), an enzyme that sialylates O-linked glycoproteins, in Escherichia coli cells. We observed that wild-type bacterial cells are able to produce only very small amounts of soluble ST6 enzyme. We have found, however, that engineered bacterial strains which possess certain types of oxidative cytoplasm or which co-express the molecular chaperones/co-chaperones trigger factor, DnaK/DnaJ, GroEL/GroES, and Skp, can produce greatly enhanced amounts of soluble ST6. Furthermore, we have developed a novel high-throughput assay for the detection of sialyltransferase activity and used it to demonstrate that the bacterially expressed ST6 enzyme is active and able to transfer sialic acid onto a desialylated O-glycoprotein, bovine submaxillary mucin. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first example of expression of active human sialyltransferase in bacteria. This system may be used as a starting point for the evolution of sialyltransferases with better expression characteristics or altered donor/acceptor specificities.

Enhanced recombinant protein synthesis in batch and fed‐batch Escherichia coli fermentation based on removal of inhibitory acetate by electrodialysis

AbstractBACKGROUND: The formation of acetate as a metabolic by‐product in Escherichia coli fermentation is well known to have detrimental effects on cell growth and productivity. Various bioprocess and genetic approaches have previously been made to limit acetate accumulation, however, they tend to be conservative, limiting overall process productivity, or lead to other problems such as a decrease in maximum specific growth rate and decreased product yield on carbon.RESULTS: In this work, the utility of electrodialysis is examined as a potentially generic approach for in situ acetate removal and its impact on recombinant protein production. Using the induced synthesis of recombinant green fluorescent protein (GFP) in E. coli Tg1 (pGLO) as an example, it is shown that in situ removal of acetate to below inhibitory levels (∼1 g L−1) provides significant improvements in cell growth rate as well as specific biomass and recombinant protein yields. Experiments were performed in a 7.5 L stirred‐tank bioreactor using an external single cell‐pair electrodialysis module with an effective ion exchange membrane area of 0.01 m2. For this system increases in specific recombinant protein yield of up to 4‐fold have been observed dependent upon the time of induction, the mode of operation and the level to which acetate concentration is reduced in the fermentation broth.CONCLUSIONS: The implementation of ED can significantly increase the level of recombinant protein synthesis in batch and fed‐batch fermentation. The approach is considered to be generic, readily implemented and has wide application for the production of recombinant enzymes and proteins. Copyright © 2009 Society of Chemical Industry

Engineering of Cysteine Residues Leads to Improved Production of a Human Dipeptidase Enzyme in E. coli

Low yields, poor folding efficiencies and improper disulfide bridge formation limit large-scale production of cysteine-rich proteins in Escherichia coli. Human renal dipeptidase (MDP), the only human beta-lactamase known to date, is a homodimeric enzyme, which contains six cysteine residues per monomer. It hydrolyses penem and carbapenem beta-lactam antibiotics and can cleave dipeptides containing amino acids in both D: - and L: -configurations. In this study, MDP accumulated in inactive form in high molecular weight, disulfide-linked aggregates when produced in the E. coli periplasm. Mutagenesis of Cys361 that mediates dimer formation and Cys93 that is unpaired in the native MDP led to production of soluble recombinant enzyme, with no change in activity compared with the wild-type enzyme. The removal of unpaired or structurally inessential cysteine residues in this manner may allow functional production of many multiply disulfide-linked recombinant proteins in E. coli.

Enzyme Replacement Therapy for Lysosomal Storage Disorders

Enzyme replacement therapy is the only authorized method for treating lysosomal storage disorders. During the last ten years, this method has been demonstrated to be both safe and effective for the treatment of many lysosomal storage disorder patients. Recent advances in enzyme replacement therapy address the pressing issues for this therapeutic strategy: high cost and ineffectiveness in certain disease manifestations. To address the costs of enzyme replacement therapy, a variety of expression systems including plant and insect cells have been developed for production of recombinant lysosomal enzymes in a more affordable manner. In addition, various chemical and biological strategies have been used to enhance enzyme activity and lysosome targeting efficiency. The range of diseases treatable with enzyme replacement therapy has been expanded by the development of expression and purification processes for unique lysosomal enzymes. Novel administration methods have also been developed which has been recently patented to effectively deliver lysosomal enzymes to brain tissues that are inaccessible by traditional intravenous administration. Because of these advances, together with the development of gene expression technology and metabolic engineering, more lysosomal storage disorder patients are expected to benefit from enzyme replacement therapy. Keywords: Enzyme replacement therapy, lysosomal storage disorders, insect cell expression systems, plant expression systems, glycosylation

Uricase production by a recombinant Hansenula polymorpha strain harboring Candida utilis uricase gene

Uricase is an important medical enzyme which can be used to determine urate in clinical analysis, to therapy gout, hyperuricemia, and tumor lysis syndrome. Uricase of Candida utilis was successfully expressed in Hansenula polymorpha under the control of methanol oxidase promoter using Saccharomyces cerevisiae alpha-factor signal peptide as the secretory sequence. Recombinant H. polymorpha MU200 with the highest extracellular uricase production was characterized with three copies of expression cassette and selected for process optimization for the production of recombinant enzyme. Among the parameters investigated in shaking flask cultures, the pH value of medium and inoculum size had great influence on the recombinant uricase production. The maximum extracellular uricase yield of 2.6 U/ml was obtained in shaking flask culture. The yield of recombinant uricase was significantly improved by the combined use of a high cell-density cultivation technique and a pH control strategy of switching culture pH from 5.5 to 6.5 in the induction phase. After induction for 58 h, the production of recombinant uricase reached 52.3 U/ml (about 2.1 g/l of protein) extracellularly and 60.3 U/ml (about 2.4 g/l) intracellularly in fed-batch fermentation, which are much higher than those expressed in other expression systems. To our knowledge, this is the first report about the heterologous expression of uricase in H. polymorpha.

Strategies towards the Functionalization of Subtilisin E from Bacillus subtilis for Wool Finishing Applications

AbstractSubtilisin E is an alkaline serine protease secreted by the Gram positive bacterium Bacillus subtilis and widely used in industry as a biocatalyst for various processes. The most common application of subtilisins is in laundry detergents. However, due to environmental concerns, the application of subtilisins to treat wool, is under study. There are some reports regarding the attempts to substitute the conventional chlorine treatment by an enzymatic process capable of providing the same characteristics to the fabric, like anti‐shrinking and better uptake and fixation of the dyestuff. However, the degree of uncontrolled hydrolysis due to diffusion of the enzyme inside the wool fiber causes unacceptable losses of strength. To overcome this fact, and taking advantage of the x‐ray crystallographic structure, the authors have modified subtilisin E genetically, increasing its molecular weight, to restrict the hydrolysis to the surface of the wool fibers. Therefore, three genetically modified enzymes with a molecular weight 2‐fold to 4‐fold higher than the native subtilisin E were produced and assessed for activity. The prokaryotic expression systems, pET25b (+), pET11b and pBAD C, were explored for the production of recombinant enzymes. The results demonstrated that regardless the expression system or strain used, chimeric subtilisins were not expressed with the correct folding. No active and soluble recombinant protein was recovered under the testing conditions. Despite this drawback, a novel approach was described to increase the molecular weight of subtilisin. The reported results are noteworthy and can indicate good guidelines for future work aiming at the solubilization of recombinant chimeric subtilisins.

Purification and characterization of five alkaline, thermotolerant, and maltotetraose-producing α-amylases from Bacillus halodurans MS-2-5, and production of recombinant enzymes in Escherichia coli

A newly isolated strain, MS-2-5, identified as Bacillus halodurans, produced five alkaline and thermotolerant amylases. The five amylases, named amylases A–E, were separated from each other, and purified to homogeneity. The molecular masses of these amylases were different from each other, and estimated to be 90, 85, 70, 65, and 58 kDa. These amylases showed the maximal activities at 60–65 °C and pH 10.5–11. A predominant product by each enzyme reaction was maltotetraose. These amylases were classified as an α-amylase by anomeric form analysis of the reaction products. Internal amino acid sequence analyses of the purified enzymes suggested that these enzymes were produced from a single polypeptide by proteolytic degradation. The gene, named amyA, was cloned and expressed in the T7 promoter systems of Escherichia coli. To increase yield and productivity of recombinant enzyme, cultivation conditions were examined. The maximal amount of enzyme was produced when an E. coli transformant carrying amyA was cultivated at 25 °C in Luria-Bertani medium supplemented with 1.0% d-glucose, 1.0% d-sorbitol, 0.1% MgSO 4·7H 2O, and 2.0% yeast extract. The yield of the transformant increased 104-fold as, compared with that of the parent strain MS-2-5.