Characterization of the heterologous invertase produced by Schizosaccharomyces pombe from the SUC2 gene of Saccharomyces cerevisiae

The Influence of Yarrowia lipolytica Glycosylation on the Biochemical Properties and Oligomerization of Heterologous Invertase

Invertases are important enzymes used in the food industry. Despite many studies on the invertase-encoding SUC2 gene expression in the industrial yeast Yarrowia lipolytica, no biochemical characteristics of this enzyme expressed as heterologous protein have been provided. Here, two isoforms of extracellular invertase produced by Y. lipolytica were detected using ion-exchange chromatography. Specific activities of 226.45 and 432.66 U/mg for the first and second isoform, respectively, were determined. Basic characteristics of this enzyme were similar to the one isolated from Saccharomyces cerevisiae (optimum pH and temperature, metal ions inhibition, substrate specificity and fructooligosaccharides (FOS) biosynthesis). The apparent differences were higher KM for sucrose (67 mM) and lower molecular mass (66 kDa) resulting from lower N-glycosylation level (9.1% of mass). The N-glycan structures determined by MALDI-TOF and HPLC represented high mannose structures, though with much shorter chains than hypermannosylated glycans from S. cerevisiae. Furthermore, galactose was detected as the modifying sugar in the glycan structures of invertase expressed in Y. lipolytica. N-glycans did not affect invertase activity but were important for its oligomerization. The expressed enzyme aggregated into dimers, tetramers, hexamers, and octamers, as well as structures of higher molecular mass, which might be decamers, which have not been described so far in the literature.

Expression and secretion of a prokaryotic protein streptokinase without glycosylation and degradation inSchizosaccharomyces pombe

Streptokinase (SK) is an important thrombolytic protein that is secreted by pathogenic strains of Streptococcus. Expression of streptokinase has been so far attempted in Pichia pastoris, Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis and shown to yield protein that was either highly glycosylated or degraded. Since the fission yeast, Schizosaccharomyces pombe, shares several molecular characteristics with higher eukaryotes, we decided to express the streptokinase gene in this yeast. A chimeric gene comprising the signal sequence of the Plus pheromone of Sz. pombe fused in-frame with the mature streptokinase from Streptococcus sp. was constructed and inserted into the expression vector containing the thiamine-regulated promoter. We obtained a high level of expression of streptokinase comparable to that in E. coli and P. pastoris, with 50-100% processing of the signal sequence and secretion of the mature streptokinase into the periplasmic fraction. The mature enzyme co-migrates with the authentic mature SK in SDS gels, lacks any major modification and is functional. Importantly, a higher level of expression under stationary phase conditions and improved extractability of the mature and undegraded streptokinase was achieved in a novel mutant of Sz. pombe defective for a potent extracellular protease activity. We suggest that the unique vector/strain system developed here could be advantageous for large-scale production of prokaryotic proteins without significant modification or degradation in Sz. pombe.

How well is enzyme function conserved as a function of pairwise sequence identity?

Enzyme function conservation has been used to derive the threshold of sequence identity necessary to transfer function from a protein of known function to an unknown protein. Using pairwise sequence comparison, several studies suggested that when the sequence identity is above 40%, enzyme function is well conserved. In contrast, Rost argued that because of database bias, the results from such simple pairwise comparisons might be misleading. Thus, by grouping enzyme sequences into families based on sequence similarity and selecting representative sequences for comparison, he showed that enzyme function starts to diverge quickly when the sequence identity is below 70%. Here, we employ a strategy similar to Rost's to reduce the database bias; however, we classify enzyme families based not only on sequence similarity, but also on functional similarity, i.e. sequences in each family must have the same four digits or the same first three digits of the enzyme commission (EC) number. Furthermore, instead of selecting representative sequences for comparison, we calculate the function conservation of each enzyme family and then average the degree of enzyme function conservation across all enzyme families. Our analysis suggests that for functional transferability, 40% sequence identity can still be used as a confident threshold to transfer the first three digits of an EC number; however, to transfer all four digits of an EC number, above 60% sequence identity is needed to have at least 90% accuracy. Moreover, when PSI-BLAST is used, the magnitude of the E-value is found to be weakly correlated with the extent of enzyme function conservation in the third iteration of PSI-BLAST. As a result, functional annotation based on the E-values from PSI-BLAST should be used with caution. We also show that by employing an enzyme family-specific sequence identity threshold above which 100% functional conservation is required, functional inference of unknown sequences can be accurately accomplished. However, this comes at a cost: those true positive sequences below this threshold cannot be uniquely identified.

Purification and partial characterization of fructosyltransferase and invertase from Aspergillus niger AS0023

Fructosyltransferase (EC.2.4.1.9) and invertase (EC.3.2.1.26) have been purified from the crude extract of Aspergillus niger AS0023 by successive chromatographies on DEAE-sephadex A-25, sepharose 6B, sephacryl S-200, and concanavalin A-Sepharose 4B columns. On acrylamide electrophoresis the two enzymes, in native and denatured forms, gave diffused glycoprotein bands with different electrophoretic mobility. On native-PAGE and SDS-PAGE, both enzymes migrated as polydisperse aggregates yielding broad and diffused bands. This result is typical of heterogeneous glycoproteins and the two enzymes have proved their glycoprotein nature by their adsorption on concanavalin A lectin. Fructosyltransferase (FTS) on native PAGE migrated as two enzymatically active bands with different electrophoretic mobility, one around 600 kDa and the other from 193 to 425 kDa. On SDS-PAGE, these two fractions yielded one band corresponding to a molecular weight range from 81 to 168 kDa. FTS seems to undergo association-dissociation of its glycoprotein subunits to form oligomers with different degrees of polymerization. Invertase (INV) showed higher mobility corresponding to a molecular range from 82 to 251 kDa, on native PAGE, and from 71 to 111 kDa on SDS-PAGE. The two enzymes exhibited distinctly different pH and temperature profiles. The optimum pH and temperature for FTS were found to be 5.8 and 50 degrees C, respectively, while INV showed optimum activity at pH 4.4 and 55 degrees C. Metal ions and other inhibitors had different effects on the two enzyme activities. FTS was completely abolished with 1 mM Hg(2+) and Ag(2+), while INV maintained 72 and 66% of its original activity, respectively. Furthermore, the two enzymes exhibited distinctly different kinetic constants confirming their different nature. The K(m) and V(m) values for each enzyme were calculated to be 44.38 mM and 1030 micromol ml(-1)min(-1) for FTS and 35.67 mM and 398 micromol ml(-1) min(-1) for INV, respectively. FTS and INV catalytic activity was dependent on sucrose concentration. FTS activity increased with increasing sucrose concentrations, while INV activity decreased markedly with increasing sucrose concentration. Furthermore, INV exhibited only hydrolytic activity producing exclusively fructose and glucose from sucrose, while FTS catalyzed exclusively fructosyltransfer reaction producing glucose, 1-kestose, nystose and fructofuranosyl nystose. In addition, at 50% sucrose concentration FTS produced fructooligosaccharides at the yield of 62% against 54% with the crude extract.

Isolation and characterization of an invertase and its repressor genes from Schizosaccharomyces pombe

PCR was used to isolate an invertase homolog gene from the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe. The cloned inv1(+) gene encodes a protein of 581 amino acids with 16 potential asparagine-linked glycosylation sites, and has 39% and 38% identity to the Schwanniomyces occidentalis and Saccharomyces cerevisiae SUC2 invertases. When the inv1(+) gene was disrupted, S. pombe strains lacked detectable invertase activity. This result showed that the inv1(+) gene encodes only one active invertase in S. pombe cells. The transcription of inv1(+) is repressed in the presence of glucose. The transcription of inv1(+) was not affected in cyr1Delta strain which lacks adenylate cyclase activity, unlike transcription of S. pombe fbp1(+) gene. We have identified an S. pombe gene (scr1(+)) that encodes a homolog of the Aspergillus nidulans CREA which is required for glucose repression of the glyconeogenic pathway. Although the deletion of scr1(+) did not influence the transcription of fbp1(+) gene, glucose repression of the inv1(+) gene was severely affected. These results showed that glucose repression of inv1(+) gene is dependent on scr1(+) gene, and S. pombe cAMP signalling pathway may not be essential for glucose repression of inv1(+) gene.

Schizosaccharomyces pombe fragile mutants as a host for heterologous protein production

In order to gain information about the potential interest of the Schizosaccharomyces pombe srb 1 fragile mutants as a host for heterologous protein production, the extracellular secretion of homologous and heterologous invertases was investigated. Under catabolic derepression the fragile srb 1 mutants released into the extracellular medium 5-6-fold more invertase than the parental strain. When transformed with the SUC2 gene, which codes for Saccharomyces cerevisiae invertase, the srb 1-3 fragile mutant, grown under catabolic repression, released into the medium 3-fold more invertase than the wild-type transformant, even though the majority of the enzyme remained associated with the cell wall. Electrophoretic analysis revealed the presence in the fragile strains of some invertase forms with molecular weights smaller than their parallel wild-type strains, suggesting that the srb 1 mutants may underglycosylate not only their homologous but also the heterologous proteins.