Purification and properties of Acinetobacter sp. endo-β-N-acetylglucosaminidase acting on complex oligosaccharides of glycoproteins

Are there biological functions for bacterial endo-N-acetyl-beta-D-glucosaminidases?

The endo-N-acetyl-beta-D-glucosaminidases (ENGase) acting on the N-N'-diacetylchitobiosyl core of N-glycosylproteins are essential reagents for the investigation of the structure and the functions of glycoproteins. These enzymes were largely studied with the aim of offering more tools with new and broader substrate specificities to the community of glycobiologist. Conversely, little attention was given to their potential role in the physiology of bacteria, even though it had been shown that ENGases are important enzymes for the physiology of animal and plant cells. In this brief review, we present the main characteristics of the bacterial ENGases and confine our discussion to biological aspects of their action in bacterial systems.

Do de-N-glycosylation enzymes have an important role in plant cells?

In this review de-N-glycosylation was defined as the removal of the glycan(s) from a N-glycosylprotein, by means of enzymes acting on the di-N-acetylchitobiosyl part of the invariant pentasaccharide inner-core of N-glycosylproteins. Peptide-N4-(N-acetyl-beta-D-glucosaminyl) asparagine amidases (PNGase) and endo-N-acetyl-beta-D-glucosaminidases (ENGase) were both considered as de-N-glycosylation enzymes. A detailed description of the characterization and the function of plant PNGases and ENGases is presented, together with a brief presentation on the occurrence and the current knowledge on the function of microbial and animal enzymes. De-N-glycosylation of plant glycoproteins was proposed as a possible mechanism for the release of oligosaccharides displaying biological activities and the removal of N-glycans could also explain the regulation of protein activity. Each enzyme seems to have a specific function during germination and post-germinative development. All the arguments concur that de-N-glycosylation enzymes have an important role in plant cells and confirm that the N-glycosylation/de-N-glycosylation system should occur more commonly than presently recognized in living organisms.

Endo beta-N-acetylglucosaminidase F cleavage specificity with peptide free oligosaccharides

Endo beta-N-acetylglucosaminidase activities were determined based on conversion of oligosaccharides containing two N-acetylglucosamines to the oligosaccharides with a single N-acetylglucosamine at the reducing terminal and following their separation on a carbohydrate analyzer. The oligosaccharides eluted from the high performance anion exchange column in the order of fucosyl-N,N'-diacetylchitobiose, N,N'-diacetylchitobiose and N-acetylglucosamine containing reducing terminals. Using this assay, differences in cleavage specificity of the endo beta-N-acetylglucosaminidase F (Endo F) activity on various free oligosaccharides obtained from the standard glycoproteins was determined. The commercial Endo F-peptide N-glycosidase/glycanyl amidase (PNGase) mixture readily cleaved high mannose and complex oligosaccharides (neutral and sialyated) with common core alpha 1-6 linked fucose found in porcine thyroglobulin including the trimannosyl-chitobiose core structure. However, the same Endo F mixture did not cleave the non-fucosylated complex oligosaccharides found in human transferrin and also the common core structure. Glycopeptide counterparts with and without fucose were good substrates for the endoglycosidases. These results show that the specificity of these enzymes is such that they can recognize the conformational differences between free oligosaccharides and glycopeptides with and without the common core alpha 1-6 linked fucose. In contrast, highly purified Endo F cleaved only the high mannose type oligosaccharides and was unable to cleave ovalbumin hybrid type oligosaccharides.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)