Enzymes involved in the processing of starch to sugars

Properties and applications of starch-converting enzymes of the alpha-amylase family

Starch is a major storage product of many economically important crops such as wheat, rice, maize, tapioca, and potato. A large-scale starch processing industry has emerged in the last century. In the past decades, we have seen a shift from the acid hydrolysis of starch to the use of starch-converting enzymes in the production of maltodextrin, modified starches, or glucose and fructose syrups. Currently, these enzymes comprise about 30% of the world's enzyme production. Besides the use in starch hydrolysis, starch-converting enzymes are also used in a number of other industrial applications, such as laundry and porcelain detergents or as anti-staling agents in baking. A number of these starch-converting enzymes belong to a single family: the alpha-amylase family or family13 glycosyl hydrolases. This group of enzymes share a number of common characteristics such as a (beta/alpha)(8) barrel structure, the hydrolysis or formation of glycosidic bonds in the alpha conformation, and a number of conserved amino acid residues in the active site. As many as 21 different reaction and product specificities are found in this family. Currently, 25 three-dimensional (3D) structures of a few members of the alpha-amylase family have been determined using protein crystallization and X-ray crystallography. These data in combination with site-directed mutagenesis studies have helped to better understand the interactions between the substrate or product molecule and the different amino acids found in and around the active site. This review illustrates the reaction and product diversity found within the alpha-amylase family, the mechanistic principles deduced from structure-function relationship structures, and the use of the enzymes of this family in industrial applications.

Thermostable glucose-tolerant glucoamylase produced by the thermophilic fungus Scytalidium thermophilum

Glucoamylase produced by Scytalidium thermophilum was purified 80-fold by DEAE-cellulose, ultrafiltration and CM-cellulose chromatography. The enzyme is a glycoprotein containing 9.8% saccharide, pI of 8.3 and molar mass of 75 kDa (SDS-PAGE) or 60 kDa (Sepharose 6B). Optima of pH and temperature with starch or maltose as substrates were 5.5/70 degrees C and 5.5/65 degrees C, respectively. The enzyme was stable for 1 h at 55 degrees C and for about 8 d at 4 degrees C, either at pH 7.0 or pH 5.5. Starch, amylopectin, glycogen, amylose and maltose were the substrates preferentially hydrolyzed. The activity was activated by 1 mmol/L Mg2+ (27%), Zn2+ (21%), Ba2+ (8%) and Mn2+ (5%). Km and vlim values for starch and maltose were 0.21 g/L, 62 U/mg protein and 3.9 g/L, 9.0 U/mg protein, respectively. Glucoamylase activity was only slightly inhibited by glucose up to a 1 mol/L concentration.

One-step purification of glucoamylase by affinity precipitation with alginate

It was found that alginate binds to glucoamylase, presumably through the recognition of starch binding domain of the latter. The present work exploits this for purification of glucoamylases from commercial preparation of Aspergillus niger and crude culture filtrate of Bacillus amyloliquefaciens by affinity precipitation technique in a single-step protocol. Glucoamylase is selectively precipitated using alginate as macroaffinity ligand and later eluted with 1.0 M maltose. In the case of A. niger, 81% activity is recovered with 28-fold purification. The purified glucoamylase gave a single band on SDS-PAGE corresponding to 78 kDa molecular weight. The developed affinity precipitation process also works efficiently for purification of Bacillus amyloliquefaciens glucoamylase from its crude culture filtrate, giving 78% recovery with 38-fold purification. The purified preparation showed a major band corresponding to 62 kDa and a faint band about 50 kDa on SDS-PAGE. The latter corresponds to the molecular weight for alpha-amylase of Bacillus amyloliquefaciens.

Hyperthermophilic enzymes: sources, uses, and molecular mechanisms for thermostability

Enzymes synthesized by hyperthermophiles (bacteria and archaea with optimal growth temperatures of > 80 degrees C), also called hyperthermophilic enzymes, are typically thermostable (i.e., resistant to irreversible inactivation at high temperatures) and are optimally active at high temperatures. These enzymes share the same catalytic mechanisms with their mesophilic counterparts. When cloned and expressed in mesophilic hosts, hyperthermophilic enzymes usually retain their thermal properties, indicating that these properties are genetically encoded. Sequence alignments, amino acid content comparisons, crystal structure comparisons, and mutagenesis experiments indicate that hyperthermophilic enzymes are, indeed, very similar to their mesophilic homologues. No single mechanism is responsible for the remarkable stability of hyperthermophilic enzymes. Increased thermostability must be found, instead, in a small number of highly specific alterations that often do not obey any obvious traffic rules. After briefly discussing the diversity of hyperthermophilic organisms, this review concentrates on the remarkable thermostability of their enzymes. The biochemical and molecular properties of hyperthermophilic enzymes are described. Mechanisms responsible for protein inactivation are reviewed. The molecular mechanisms involved in protein thermostabilization are discussed, including ion pairs, hydrogen bonds, hydrophobic interactions, disulfide bridges, packing, decrease of the entropy of unfolding, and intersubunit interactions. Finally, current uses and potential applications of thermophilic and hyperthermophilic enzymes as research reagents and as catalysts for industrial processes are described.

Thermostable alpha-amylase production by an extreme thermophile Bacillus thermooleovorans

AIMS

alpha-Amylase production by a newly isolated thermophile, Bacillus thermooleovorans, was studied under different cultivation conditions.

METHODS AND RESULTS

The influence of various carbon and nitrogen sources on alpha-amylase production was quantified in batch fermentation in shake flasks. Starch and tryptone were observed to be the ideal carbon and nitrogen sources, respectively. Cultivation of the organism in a chemically defined medium consisting of glucose, riboflavin, cysteine, MgSO4, K2HPO4 and NaCl led to a near twofold increase in the production of alpha-amylase in comparison with that in the complex medium. The increase in enzyme production was achieved using vitamins and amino acids. When the organism was grown in a laboratory fermenter in the optimized complex medium, the noticeable effects were the near abolition of the lag phase, a 2.2-fold increase in enzyme production and a reduction in optimal production time from 12 to 4-5 h.

CONCLUSION

Enhancement of amylase production was achieved under various cultivation conditions.

SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT OF THE STUDY

Bacillus thermooleovorans produces a calcium-independent and thermostable amylase which can find use in starch saccharification.

A new thermoactive pullulanase from Desulfurococcus mucosus: cloning, sequencing, purification, and characterization of the recombinant enzyme after expression in Bacillus subtilis

The gene encoding a thermoactive pullulanase from the hyperthermophilic anaerobic archaeon Desulfurococcus mucosus (apuA) was cloned in Escherichia coli and sequenced. apuA from D. mucosus showed 45.4% pairwise amino acid identity with the pullulanase from Thermococcus aggregans and contained the four regions conserved among all amylolytic enzymes. apuA encodes a protein of 686 amino acids with a 28-residue signal peptide and has a predicted mass of 74 kDa after signal cleavage. The apuA gene was then expressed in Bacillus subtilis and secreted into the culture fluid. This is one of the first reports on the successful expression and purification of an archaeal amylopullulanase in a Bacillus strain. The purified recombinant enzyme (rapuDm) is composed of two subunits, each having an estimated molecular mass of 66 kDa. Optimal activity was measured at 85 degrees C within a broad pH range from 3.5 to 8.5, with an optimum at pH 5.0. Divalent cations have no influence on the stability or activity of the enzyme. RapuDm was stable at 80 degrees C for 4 h and exhibited a half-life of 50 min at 85 degrees C. By high-pressure liquid chromatography analysis it was observed that rapuDm hydrolyzed alpha-1,6 glycosidic linkages of pullulan, producing maltotriose, and also alpha-1,4 glycosidic linkages in starch, amylose, amylopectin, and cyclodextrins, with maltotriose and maltose as the main products. Since the thermoactive pullulanases known so far from Archaea are not active on cyclodextrins and are in fact inhibited by these cyclic oligosaccharides, the enzyme from D. mucosus should be considered an archaeal pullulanase type II with a wider substrate specificity.

Engineering direct fructose production in processed potato tubers by expressing a bifunctional alpha-amylase/glucose isomerase gene complex

Manipulation of starch biosynthesis/degradation and formation of novel molecules in storage organs of plants through genetic engineering is an attractive but technically challenging goal. We report here, for the first time, that starch was degraded and glucose and fructose were produced directly when crushed potato tubers expressing a starch degrading bifunctional gene were heated for 45 minutes at 65 degrees C. To achieve this, we have constructed a fusion gene encoding the thermostable enzymes: alpha-amylase (Bacillus stearothermophilus) and glucose isomerase (Thermus thermophilus). The chimeric gene was placed under the control of the granule-bound-starch synthase promoter. This enzymatic complex produced in transgenic tubers was only active at high temperature (65 degrees C). More than 100 independent transgenic potato plants were regenerated. Molecular analyses confirmed the stable integration of the chimeric gene into the potato genome. The biochemical analyses performed on young and old tubers after high-temperature treatment (65 degrees C) revealed an increase in the formation rate of fructose and glucose by a factor of 16.4 and 5. 7, respectively, in the transgenic tubers as compared to untransformed control tubers. No adverse discernible effect on plant development and metabolism including tuber formation and starch accumulation was observed in the transgenic plants before heat treatment. Our results demonstrate that it is possible to replace starch degradation using microbial enzymes via a system where the enzymes are produced directly in the plants, but active only at high temperature, thus offering novel and viable strategies for starch-processing industries.

The cyclization mechanism of cyclodextrin glycosyltransferase (CGTase) as revealed by a gamma-cyclodextrin-CGTase complex at 1.8-A resolution

The enzyme cyclodextrin glycosyltransferase is closely related to alpha-amylases but has the unique ability to produce cyclodextrins (circular alpha(1-->4)-linked glucoses) from starch. To characterize this specificity we determined a 1.8-A structure of an E257Q/D229N mutant cyclodextrin glycosyltransferase in complex with its product gamma-cyclodextrin, which reveals for the first time how cyclodextrin is competently bound. Across subsites -2, -1, and +1, the cyclodextrin ring binds in a twisted mode similar to linear sugars, giving rise to deformation of its circular symmetry. At subsites -3 and +2, the cyclodextrin binds in a manner different from linear sugars. Sequence comparisons and site-directed mutagenesis experiments support the conclusion that subsites -3 and +2 confer the cyclization activity in addition to subsite -6 and Tyr-195. On this basis, a role of the individual residues during the cyclization reaction cycle is proposed.

N, Antranikian G. Extremely thermophilic microorganisms and their polymer-hidrolytic enzymes

Thermophilic and hyperthermophilic microorganisms are found as normal inhabitants of continental and submarine volcanic areas, geothermally heated sea-sediments and hydrothermal vents and thus are considered extremophiles. Several present or potential applications of extremophilic enzymes are reviewed, especially polymer-hydrolysing enzymes, such as amylolytic and hemicellulolytic enzymes. The purpose of this review is to present the range of morphological and metabolic features among those microorganisms growing from 70oC to 100°C and to indicate potential opportunities for useful applications derived from these features.

Protein engineering of alpha-amylase for low pH performance

Industrial-scale starch liquefaction is currently constrained to operating at pH 6.0 and above, as the enzyme used in the process, Bacillus licheniformis alpha-amylase, is unstable at lower pH under the conditions used. There is a need to develop an enzyme that can operate at lower pH. Recent progress has been made in engineering the B. licheniformis enzyme for improved industrial performance. The availability of crystal structures and subsequent analysis of improved variants, in a structural context, is revealing common factors and a rationale to make further improvements.

Commodity scale production of sugars from starches

The production of sugars from starch sources is an industry that exists in its present form due to the application of industrial enzymology to solve process related problems. As the industry matures, the demand for more efficient enzymes leading to higher quality products and lower production costs for the starch processor has increased. Researchers are now finding or tailoring enzymes for specific operational needs of the processor using a combination of tools such as protein engineering, directed evolution and improved accessing of natural diversity.

Pullulanase type I from Fervidobacterium pennavorans Ven5: cloning, sequencing, and expression of the gene and biochemical characterization of the recombinant enzyme

The gene encoding the type I pullulanase from the extremely thermophilic anaerobic bacterium Fervidobacterium pennavorans Ven5 was cloned and sequenced in Escherichia coli. The pulA gene from F. pennavorans Ven5 had 50.1% pairwise amino acid identity with pulA from the anaerobic hyperthermophile Thermotoga maritima and contained the four regions conserved among all amylolytic enzymes. The pullulanase gene (pulA) encodes a protein of 849 amino acids with a 28-residue signal peptide. The pulA gene was subcloned without its signal sequence and overexpressed in E. coli under the control of the trc promoter. This clone, E. coli FD748, produced two proteins (93 and 83 kDa) with pullulanase activity. A second start site, identified 118 amino acids downstream from the ATG start site, with a Shine-Dalgarno-like sequence (GGAGG) and TTG translation initiation codon was mutated to produce only the 93-kDa protein. The recombinant purified pullulanases (rPulAs) were optimally active at pH 6 and 80 degrees C and had a half-life of 2 h at 80 degrees C. The rPulAs hydrolyzed alpha-1,6 glycosidic linkages of pullulan, starch, amylopectin, glycogen, alpha-beta-limited dextrin. Interestingly, amylose, which contains only alpha-1,4 glycosidic linkages, was not hydrolyzed by rPulAs. According to these results, the enzyme is classified as a debranching enzyme, pullulanase type I. The extraordinary high substrate specificity of rPulA together with its thermal stability makes this enzyme a good candidate for biotechnological applications in the starch-processing industry.