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Characterization of a thermostable lipase showing loss of secondary structure at ambient temperature

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Abstract

A gene encoding extracellular lipase was cloned and characterized from metagenomic DNA extracted from hot spring soil. The recombinant gene was expressed in E. coli and expressed protein was purified to homogeneity using hydrophobic interactions chromatography. The mature polypeptide consists of 388 amino acids with apparent molecular weight of 43 kDa. The enzyme displayed maximum activity at 50°C and pH 9.0. It showed thermal stability up to 40°C without any loss of enzyme activity. Nearly 80% enzyme activity was retained at 50°C even after incubation for 75 min. However above 50°C the enzyme displayed thermal instability. The half life of the enzyme was determined to be 5 min at 60°C. Interestingly the CD spectroscopic study carried out in the temperature range of 25–95°C revealed distortion in solution structure above 35°C. However the intrinsic tryptophan fluorescence spectroscopic study revealed that even with the loss of secondary structure at 35°C and above the tertiary structure was retained. With p-nitrophenyl laurate as a substrate, the enzyme exhibited a K m , V max and K cat of 0.73 ± 0.18 μM, 239 ± 16 μmol/ml/min and 569 s−1 respectively. Enzyme activity was strongly inhibited by CuCl2, HgCl2 and DEPC but not by PMSF, eserine and SDS. The protein retained significant activity (~70%) with Triton X-100. The enzyme displayed 100% activity in presence of 30% n-Hexane and acetone.

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Acknowledgments

The Senior research fellowship to PKS by CSIR and financial support to Dr. Jagdeep Kaur by Department of Science and Technology, India and CSIR, New Delhi is duly acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biotechnology, Panjab University, Sector 14, Chandigarh, 160014, India

    Pushpender Kumar Sharma, Kashmir Singh, Neena Capalash & Jagdeep Kaur

  2. Department of National Centre for Human Genome Studies and Research, Panjab University, Chandigarh, 160014, India

    Ranvir Singh

  3. Interdisciplinary Biotechnology Unit, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, 202002, India

    Azmat Ali & Owais Mohammad

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  1. Pushpender Kumar Sharma
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Correspondence to Jagdeep Kaur.

Electronic supplementary material

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11033_2011_1038_MOESM1_ESM.tif

Supplementary Material 1. Multiple sequence alignment of JkP01, accession number FJ 392756 [lipase, uncultured bacterium] at protein level with some of the closely related lipases at Gene Database. U78785 [lipase, Bacillus stearothermophilus L1], AY786185 [TW1 lipase Geobacillus sp. TW1], AF237623 [P1 lipase Bacillus stearothermophilus P1.The catalytic triad of the lipase is text as red color, the conserve dipeptide is text as blue and the conserve pentapeptide having catalytic serine residue text as green. (TIFF 162 kb)

11033_2011_1038_MOESM2_ESM.tif

Supplementary Material 2: SDS PAGE analysis of recombinant protein Lane1. Protein molecular weight marker, Lane2. Purified lipase protein (4.8 μg) (TIFF 96 kb)

Supplementary Material 3: Supplementary material 3 (DOC 98 kb)

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Sharma, P.K., Singh, K., Singh, R. et al. Characterization of a thermostable lipase showing loss of secondary structure at ambient temperature. Mol Biol Rep 39, 2795–2804 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11033-011-1038-1

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