Influence of N- and/or C-terminal regions on activity, expression, characteristics and structure of lipase from Geobacillus sp. 95

GD-95 lipase from Geobacillus sp. strain 95 and its modified variants lacking N-terminal signal peptide and/or 10 or 20 C-terminal amino acids were successfully cloned, expressed and purified. To our knowledge, GD-95 lipase precursor (Pre-GD-95) is the first Geobacillus lipase possessing more than 80 % lipolytic activity at 5 °C. It has maximum activity at 55 °C and displays a broad pH activity range. GD-95 lipase was shown to hydrolyze p-NP dodecanoate, tricaprylin and canola oil better than other analyzed substrates. Structural and sequence alignments of bacterial lipases and GD-95 lipase revealed that the C-terminus forms an α helix, which is a conserved structure in lipases from Pseudomonas, Clostridium or Staphylococcus bacteria. This work demonstrates that 10 and 20 C-terminal amino acids of GD-95 lipase significantly affect stability and other physicochemical properties of this enzyme, which has never been reported before and can help create lipases with more specific properties for industrial application. GD-95 lipase and its modified variants GD-95-10 can be successfully applied to biofuel production, in leather and pulp industries, for the production of cosmetics or perfumes. These lipases are potential biocatalysts in processes, which require extreme conditions: low or high temperature, strongly acidic or alkaline environment and various organic solvents.