Asn64-glycosylation affects Hypocrea jecorina (syn. Trichoderma reesei) cellobiohydrolase Cel7A activity expressed in Pichia pastoris

The role of glycosylation in non-productive adsorption of cellulase to lignin isolated from pretreated corn stover

Glycosylation, a general post-translational modification for fungal cellulase, has been shown to affect cellulase binding to its substrate. However, the exact impact of glycosylation on cellulase-lignin interaction remain unclear. Here, we demonstrated that the lignin isolated from tetrahydrofuran-pretreated corn stover exhibits strong adsorption capability to cellulase due to its negatively charged and porous structure. For the cellulases with varying glycosylation levels, the less-glycosylated protein showed high adsorption capability to lignin, and that trend was observed for the main cellulase components secreted by Penicillium oxilicum, including endoglucanase PoCel5B, cellobiohydrolase PoCel7A-2, and β-glucosidase PoBgl1. Additionally, N-glycan sites and motifs were examined using mass spectrometry, and protein structures with N-glycans were constructed, where PoBgl1 and PoCel7A-2 contained 13 and 1 glycosylated sites respectively. The results of molecular dynamics simulations indicated that the N-glycans impacted on the solvent-accessible surface area and secondary structure of protein, and the binding conformation of lignin fragment on cellulase, resulting in a decrease in binding energy (14 kcal/mol for PoBgl1 and 13 kcal/mol for PoCel7A-2), particularly for van der Waals and electrostatic interaction. Those findings suggested that glycosylation negatively impacted the lignin-cellulase interaction, providing a theoretical basis for the rational engineering of enzymes to reduce lignin-enzyme interaction.

Glycosylation of cellulase: a novel strategy for improving cellulase

Protein glycosylation is the most complex posttranslational modification process. Most cellulases from filamentous fungi contain N-glycosylation and O-glycosylation. Here, we discuss the potential roles of glycosylation on the characteristics and function of cellulases. The use of certain cultivation, inducer, and alteration of engineering glycosylation pathway can enable the rational control of cellulase glycosylation. Glycosylation does not occur arbitrarily and may tend to modify the 3D structure of cellulases by using specially distributed glycans. Therefore, glycoengineering should be considered comprehensively along with the spatial structure of cellulases. Cellulase glycosylation may be an evolution phenomenon, which has been considered as an economical way for providing different functions from identical proteins. In addition to gene and transcription regulations, glycosylation may be another regulation on the protein expression level. Enhanced understanding of the potential regulatory role of cellulase glycosylation will enable synthetic biology approaches for the development of commercial cellulase.

Fungal cellulases: protein engineering and post-translational modifications

Enzymatic degradation of lignocelluloses into fermentable sugars to produce biofuels and other biomaterials is critical for environmentally sustainable development and energy resource supply. However, there are problems in enzymatic cellulose hydrolysis, such as the complex cellulase composition, low degradation efficiency, high production cost, and post-translational modifications (PTMs), all of which are closely related to specific characteristics of cellulases that remain unclear. These problems hinder the practical application of cellulases. Due to the rapid development of computer technology in recent years, computer-aided protein engineering is being widely used, which also brings new opportunities for the development of cellulases. Especially in recent years, a large number of studies have reported on the application of computer-aided protein engineering in the development of cellulases; however, these articles have not been systematically reviewed. This article focused on the aspect of protein engineering and PTMs of fungal cellulases. In this manuscript, the latest literatures and the distribution of potential sites of cellulases for engineering have been systematically summarized, which provide reference for further improvement of cellulase properties. KEY POINTS: •Rational design based on virtual mutagenesis can improve cellulase properties. •Modifying protein side chains and glycans helps obtain superior cellulases. •N-terminal glutamine-pyroglutamate conversion stabilizes fungal cellulases.

Substrate affinity and catalytic efficiency are improved by decreasing glycosylation sites in Trichoderma reesei cellobiohydrolase I expressed in Pichia pastoris

OBJECTIVES

To modify two main N-glycosylation residues of cellobiohydrolase I from Trichoderma reesei by site-directed mutagenesis for decreasing the extent of glycosylation and exploring possible effects on its properties.

RESULTS

Asparagine 45 and 64 residues were mutated to alanine to make single/double mutants and expressed in P. pastoris. Decreasing N-glycosylation of the recombinant CBH I resulted in an increased affinity of the enzyme for carboxymethylcellulose and also improved the Kcat/Km while the specific activity was decreased. Also, the enzymes were stable up to 80 °C. There was no significant change of the optimum pH and temperature by decrease of glycosylation in the mutated enzymes in comparison to the wild-type at constant incubation time of assay.

CONCLUSION

Post-translational glycan-modification of CBH I in P. pastoris has different impacts on the properties of the secreted enzymes. Substrate affinity and catalytic efficiency were improved significantly while the activity and high temperature stability were negatively affected.

Improved activity of the Cel5A endoglucanase in Saccharomyces cerevisiae deletion mutants defective in oxidative stress defense mechanisms

OBJECTIVES

Developing a Saccharomyces cerevisiae system for optimizing the expression of recombinant eukaryotic proteins.

RESULTS

Two deletion mutants, which were hypersensitive to H2O2, were obtained by knocking out CTT1 and SOD2, respectively. The mutation rate of the mutants was up to over 4000 times of the spontaneous mutation rate when treated with H2O2. Endoglucanase Cel5A was used as a model enzyme to evaluate the system for improving the expression of the recombinant protein. Sixteen mutants of the RDKY3615 (ctt1∆) transformant and seven mutants of the RDKY3615 (sod2∆) transformant had significantly high Cel5A activity, while none mutants of the RDKY3615 transformant had significantly high enzyme activity.

CONCLUSION

The combination of deletion mutagenesis and H2O2 treatment greatly accelerate the generation of genetic variants and will be a useful tool in improving the heterologous expression in S. cerevisiae.

Glycosylation of Cellulases: Engineering Better Enzymes for Biofuels

Cellulose in plant cell walls is the largest reservoir of renewable carbon on Earth. The saccharification of cellulose from plant biomass into soluble sugars can be achieved using fungal and bacterial cellulolytic enzymes, cellulases, and further converted into fuels and chemicals. Most fungal cellulases are both N- and O-glycosylated in their native form, yet the consequences of glycosylation on activity and structure are not fully understood. Studying protein glycosylation is challenging as glycans are extremely heterogeneous, stereochemically complex, and glycosylation is not under direct genetic control. Despite these limitations, many studies have begun to unveil the role of cellulase glycosylation, especially in the industrially relevant cellobiohydrolase from Trichoderma reesei, Cel7A. Glycosylation confers many beneficial properties to cellulases including enhanced activity, thermal and proteolytic stability, and structural stabilization. However, glycosylation must be controlled carefully as such positive effects can be dampened or reversed. Encouragingly, methods for the manipulation of glycan structures have been recently reported that employ genetic tuning of glycan-active enzymes expressed from homogeneous and heterologous fungal hosts. Taken together, these studies have enabled new strategies for the exploitation of protein glycosylation for the production of enhanced cellulases for biofuel production.

N-glycoform diversity of cellobiohydrolase I from Penicillium decumbens and synergism of nonhydrolytic glycoform in cellulose degradation

Four cellobiohydrolase I (CBHI) glycoforms, namely, CBHI-A, CBHI-B, CBHI-C, and CBHI-D, were purified from the cultured broth of Penicillium decumbens JU-A10. All glycoforms had the same amino acid sequence but displayed different characteristics and biological functions. The effects of the N-glycans of the glycoforms on CBH activity were analyzed using mass spectrum data. Longer N-glycan chains at the Asn-137 of CBHI increased CBH activity. After the N-glycans were removed using site-directed mutagenesis and homologous expression in P. decumbens, the specific CBH activity of the recombinant CBHI without N-glycosylation increased by 65% compared with the wild-type CBHI with the highest specific activity. However, the activity was not stable. Only the N-glycosylation at Asn-137 can improve CBH activity by 40%. rCBHI with N-glycosylation only at Asn-470 exhibited no enzymatic activity. CBH activity was affected whether or not the protein was glycosylated, together with the N-glycosylation site and N-glycan structure. N-Glycosylation not only affects CBH activity but may also bring a new feature to a nonhydrolytic CBHI glycoform (CBHI-A). By supplementing CBHI-A to different commercial cellulase preparations, the glucose yield of lignocellulose hydrolysis increased by >20%. After treatment with a low dose (5 mg/g substrate) of CBHI-A at 50 °C for 7 days, the hydrogen-bond intensity and crystalline degree of cotton fibers decreased by 17 and 34%, respectively. These results may provide new guidelines for cellulase engineering.