The adsorption of multimeric enzymes on very lowly activated supports involves more enzyme subunits: Stabilization of a glutamate dehydrogenase from Thermus thermophilus by immobilization on heterofunctional supports

Glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH) from Thermus thermophilus is a homotrimeric enzyme that tends to dissociate at acidic pH values. GDH is readily adsorbed on highly activated anionic exchangers (HAAE), but hardly adsorbed on lowly activated supports (LAAE) or on highly activated epoxy supports. When using amino-epoxy supports, GDH immobilized on HAAE-epoxy and more slowly on LAAE-epoxy supports. Both immobilized biocatalysts were incubated at pH 10 for different times to increase the multipoint covalent attachment. LAAE-epoxy-GDH was stable at pH 4 and 25 °C, the enzyme stability did not depend on the enzyme concentration and did not release any subunit to the supernatant, in opposition to the results obtained using HAAE-epoxy supports. The general application of this strategy to stabilize multimeric enzymes was verified by immobilizing a crude protein extract. It seems that proteins adsorb on LAAE by the larger region of their surface (that is the one that involves the highest number of enzyme subunits), since it is the only area large enough to permit a multipoint ionic exchange on this LAAE. On the contrary, using HAAE, some proteins may become adsorbed by clusters that were rich in anionic groups and located in a corner of the multimer, involving only some of the subunits in the enzyme immobilization. That way, a careful design of the design of the support permits to take full advantage of the immobilization on heterofunctional supports.     

Stabilization of multimeric sucrose synthase from Acidithiobacillus caldus via immobilization and post-immobilization techniques for synthesis of UDP-glucose

Sucrose synthases (SuSys) have been attracting great interest in recent years in industrial biocatalysis. They can be used for the cost-effective production of uridine 5′-diphosphate glucose (UDP-glucose) or its in situ recycling if coupled to glycosyltransferases on the production of glycosides in the food, pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, and cosmetic industry. In this study, the homotetrameric SuSy from Acidithiobacillus caldus (SuSyAc) was immobilized-stabilized on agarose beads activated with either (i) glyoxyl groups, (ii) cyanogen bromide groups, or (iii) heterogeneously activated with both glyoxyl and positively charged amino groups. The multipoint covalent immobilization of SuSyAc on glyoxyl agarose at pH 10.0 under optimized conditions provided a significant stabilization factor at reaction conditions (pH 5.0 and 45 °C). However, this strategy did not stabilize the enzyme quaternary structure. Thus, a post-immobilization technique using functionalized polymers, such as polyethyleneimine (PEI) and dextran-aldehyde (dexCHO), was applied to cross-link all enzyme subunits. The coating of the optimal SuSyAc immobilized glyoxyl agarose with a bilayer of 25 kDa PEI and 25 kDa dexCHO completely stabilized the quaternary structure of the enzyme. Accordingly, the combination of immobilization and post-immobilization techniques led to a biocatalyst 340-fold more stable than the non-cross-linked biocatalyst, preserving 60% of its initial activity. This biocatalyst produced 256 mM of UDP-glucose in a single batch, accumulating 1 M after five reaction cycles. Therefore, this immobilized enzyme can be of great interest as a biocatalyst to synthesize UDP-glucose.

     

Enzymatic transesterification in a solvent-free system: synthesis of sn-2 docosahexaenoyl monoacylglycerol

Abstract

The enzymatic transesterification of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) ethyl ester with glycerol was carried out by using several immobilized lipases in a solvent-free system. This reaction involves the initial formation of sn-2 docosahexaenyl monoacylglycerol. This DHA derivative is highly relevant for improving the bioavailability of DHA and it has received increasing interest in the field of nutrition. Three commercial lipases, from Rhizomucor miehei (RML), Alcaligenes sp. (AQ) and Candida antarctica-fraction B (CALB) were immobilized by interfacial adsorption on a commercial hydrophobic support (a methacrylate resin containing octadecyl groups, Sepabeads C-18) and tested for glycerolysis of DHA ethyl ester. In certain cases (e.g. immobilized CALB), the transesterification reaction continues to the formation of triacylglycerol (80%) by using a very high excess of DHA ethyl ester ((115 mmols versus 1.24 mmols of glycerol and high temperatures (50?°C). However, the same biocatalyst working at lower temperatures, 37?°C, synthetizes a 90% of sn-2 monoacylglycerol even in the presence of that a high excess of DHA ethyl ester. Interestingly, immobilized RML derivative synthesizes a 98% of sn-2 monoacylglyceride (2-MG) in 15?min at 37?°C with a 4% of immobilized biocatalyst. These high activity and regioselectivity under very mild reaction conditions are very interesting for the thermal oxidative stability of the omega-3 fatty acid as well as for the thermal stability of the biocatalyst. Using Normal Phase HPLC-ELSD and accurate commercial markers, the formation of the 2-MG was confirmed.     

Purification, immobilization and stabilization of a highly enantioselective alcohol dehydrogenase from Thermus thermophilus HB27 cloned in E. coli

This paper shows the purification and immobilization of a very interesting thermophilic alcohol dehydrogenase from Thermus thermophilus HB27 cloned in Escherichia coli. The purification was based on a first thermal treatment of the crude extract, that leaves the target enzyme in the supernatant, followed by the adsorption of most contaminant proteins in a IMAC column (the target protein did not adsorb on these columns due to the poorness of His residues). Final purification factor was around a 9-fold factor (no other protein bands were detected in SDS-PAGE gels) with an overall yield around 80%. Covalent immobilization of the enzyme on very different supports only permitted to improve the enzyme stability by a 5–10-fold factor, very similarly to the results obtained by the adsorption of the enzyme on polyethyleneimine coated supports. This enzyme adsorbed by ionic exchange maintained the activity unaltered during immobilization which was a very rapid process, and was more stable than the covalent preparations in the presence of organic solvents, and the enzyme was quite strongly adsorbed on the support. Therefore, it was proposed as a good option to prepare industrial biocatalysts of the enzyme. This preparation was utilized in the asymmetric reduction of acetophenone to produce (S)-(−)-1-phenylethanol, with an enantiomeric excess of more than 99%.     

Purification and stabilization of a glutamate dehygrogenase from Thermus thermophilus via oriented multisubunit plus multipoint covalent immobilization

The immobilization of a glutamate dehydrogenase from Thermus thermophilus (GDH) on glyoxyl agarose beads at pH 7 has permitted to perform the immobilization, purification and stabilization of this interesting enzyme. It was cloned in Escherichia coli and a first thermal shock of the crude preparation destroyed most mesophilic multimeric proteins. Glyoxyl agarose can only immobilize enzymes via a multipoint and simultaneous attachment. Therefore, only proteins having several terminal amino groups in a position that permits their interaction with a flat surface can be immobilized. GDH became rapidly immobilized at pH 7 and its multimeric structure became stabilized as evidenced by SDS-PAGE. This derivative was stable at acidic pH value while the non-stabilized enzyme was very unstable under these conditions due to subunit dissociation. After immobilization, a further incubation at pH 10 improved enzyme stability under any inactivating conditions by increasing the enzyme–support bonds. In fact, GDH immobilized at pH 7 and incubated at pH 10 preserved more activity than GDH directly immobilized at pH 10 (50% versus 15% after 24 h of incubation) and was also more stable (1.5- to 3-fold, depending on the conditions).This method could be extended to any other multimeric enzyme expressed in mesophilic hosts.     

Protein hydrolysis by immobilized and stabilized trypsin

The preparation of novel immobilized and stabilized derivatives of trypsin is reported here. The new derivatives preserved 80% of the initial catalytic activity toward synthetic substrates [benzoyl-arginine p-nitroanilide (BAPNA)] and were 50,000-fold more thermally stable than the diluted soluble enzyme in the absence of autolysis. Trypsin was immobilized on highly activated glyoxyl-Sepharose following a two-step immobilization strategy: (a) first, a multipoint covalent immobilization at pH 8.5 that only involves low pK(a) amino groups (e.g., those derived from the activation of trypsin from trypsinogen) is performed and (b) next, an additional alkaline incubation at pH 10 is performed to favor an intense, additional multipoint immobilization between the high concentration of proximate aldehyde groups on the support surface and the high pK(a) amino groups at the enzyme surface region that participated in the first immobilization step. Interestingly, the new, highly stable trypsin derivatives were also much more active in the proteolysis of high molecular weight proteins when compared with a nonstabilized derivative prepared on CNBr-activated Sepharose. In fact, all the proteins contained a cheese whey extract had been completely proteolyzed after 6 h at pH 9 and 50°C, as determined by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE). Under these experimental conditions, the immobilized biocatalysts preserve more than 90% of their initial activity after 20 days. Analysis of the three-dimensional (3D) structure of the best immobilized trypsin derivative showed a surface region containing two amino terminal groups and five lysine (Lys) residues that may be responsible for this novel and interesting immobilization and stabilization. Moreover, this region is relatively far from the active site of the enzyme, which could explain the good results obtained for the hydrolysis of high-molecular weight proteins.