Expression of a thermostable glucose-stimulated β-glucosidase from a hot-spring metagenome and its promising application to produce gardenia blue

This study reports a thermostable glucose-stimulated β-glucosidase, BglY442, from hot-spring metagenomic data that was cloned and expressed in Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3). The molecular mass of recombinant BglY442 was 69.9 kDa and was used in the production of gardenia blue. The recombinant BglY442 showed its maximum activity at pH 6.0 and 75 °C, maintained 50 % activity at 70 °C for 36 h, presented over 90 % activity in a broad pH range and a wide range of pH stability. Moreover, BglY442 exhibited excellent tolerance toward methanol and ethanol. The specific activity of BglY442 was 235 U/mg at pH 6.0 and 75 °C with 10 mM pNPG as substrate. BglY442 activity increased by over fourfold with 2 M glucose or xylose. Specifically, the enzyme kinetics of BglY442 seem to be non-Michaelis-Menten kinetics or atypical kinetics because the Michaelis-Menten saturation kinetics were not observed with pNPG, oNPG or geniposide as substrates. Under optimum conditions, geniposide was dehydrated by BglY442 and reacted with nine amino acids respectively by the one-pot method. Only the Arg or Met derived pigments showed bright blue, and these two pigments had similar ultraviolet absorption spectra. The OD590 nm of GB was detected to be 1.06 after 24 h with the addition of Arg and 1.61 after 36 h with the addition of Met. The intermediate was elucidated and identified as ginipin. Molecular docking analysis indicated that the enzyme had a similar catalytic mechanism to the reported GH1 Bgls. BglY442 exhibited potential for gardenia blue production by the one-pot method. With outstanding thermostability and glucose tolerance, BglY442 should be considered a potential β-glucosidase in biotechnology applications.

Increased enzymatic hydrolysis of sugarcane bagasse by a novel glucose- and xylose-stimulated β-glucosidase from Anoxybacillus flavithermus subsp. yunnanensis E13T

Background

β-Glucosidase is claimed as a key enzyme in cellulose hydrolysis. The cellulosic fibers are usually entrapped with hemicelluloses containing xylose. So there is ongoing interest in searching for glucose- and xylose-stimulated β-glucosidases to increase the efficiency of hydrolysis of cellulosic biomass.

Results

A thermostable β-glucosidase gene (Bglp) was cloned from Anoxybacillus flavithermus subsp. yunnanensis E13^T and characterized. Optimal enzyme activity was observed at 60 °C and pH 7.0. Bglp was relatively stable at 60 °C with a 10-h half-life. The kinetic parameters V_max and K_m for p-nitrophenyl-β-D-glucopyranoside (pNPG) were 771 ± 39 μmol/min/mg and 0.29 ± 0.01 mM, respectively. The activity of Bglp is dramatically stimulated by glucose or xylose at concentrations up to 1.4 M. After Bglp was added to Celluclast® 1.5 L, the conversion of sugarcane bagasse was 48.4 ± 0.8%, which was much higher than of Celluclast® 1.5 L alone. Furthermore, Bglp showed obvious advantages in the hydrolysis when initial concentrations of glucose and xylose are high.

Conclusions

The supplementation of BglP significantly enhanced the glucose yield from sugarcane bagasse, especially in the presence of high concentrations of glucose or xylose. Bglp should be a promising candidate for industrial applications.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12858-017-0079-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.