Cloning,expression and characterization of a highly active thermostable alkaline phosphatase from <Emphasis Type="Italic">Bacillus licheniformis</Emphasis> MTCC 1483 in <Emphasis Type="Italic">Escherichia coli</Emphasis> BL21 (DE3)

Alkaline phosphatase gene of the bacterium, Bacillus licheniformis MTCC 1483 was cloned and successfully expressed in Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3). Sequence analysis revealed an open reading frame of 1662 bp encoding a 553 amino acid protein with a molecular mass of 62 kDa, as determined by SDS-PAGE. The recombinant enzyme was purified using Ni-NTA affinity column and the purified enzyme showed a specific activity of 24890 U/mg protein, which is the highest value among any other bacterial recombinant alkaline phosphatases reported so far. The enzyme exhibited optimum activity at 50°C and pH 10.0 and showed high thermostability. The recombinant alkaline phosphatase from B. licheniformis MTCC 1483 exhibited a dephosphorylation efficiency of 92.9% to dephosphorylate linear DNA fragments. The recombinant enzyme with high catalytic efficiency and thermostability has the potential for applications in clinical diagnostics which require enzyme stability against thermal deactivation during preparation or labeling procedures.