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Appl Environ Microbiol, March 1998, p. 824-829, Vol. 64, No. 3
Division of Cellular, Molecular and Microbial
Biology, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Calgary,
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Received 4 August 1997/Accepted 4 December 1997
The short in vivo half-life of streptokinase limits its efficacy as
an efficient blood clot-dissolving agent. During the clot-dissolving process, streptokinase is processed to smaller intermediates by plasmin. Two of the major processing sites are Lys59 and Lys386. We
engineered two versions of streptokinase with either one of the lysine
residues changed to glutamine and a third version with both mutations.
These mutant streptokinase proteins (muteins) were produced by
secretion with the protease-deficient Bacillus subtilis
WB600 as the host. The purified muteins retained comparable kinetics parameters in plasminogen activation and showed different degrees of resistance to plasmin depending on the nature of the mutation. Muteins with double mutations had half-lives that
were extended 21-fold when assayed in a 1:1 molar ratio with
plasminogen in vitro and showed better plasminogen activation activity
with time in the radial caseinolysis assay. This study indicates that plasmin-mediated processing leads to the inactivation of streptokinase and is not required to convert streptokinase to its active form. Plasmin-resistant forms of streptokinase can be engineered without affecting their activity, and blockage of the N-terminal cleavage site
is essential to generate engineered streptokinase with a longer in
vitro functional half-life.
0099-2240/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Engineering of Plasmin-Resistant Forms of
Streptokinase and Their Production in Bacillus subtilis:
Streptokinase with Longer Functional Half-Life
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Division of
Cellular, Molecular and Microbial Biology, Department of Biological
Sciences, University of Calgary, 2500 University Dr., N.W., Calgary,
Alberta T2N 1N4, Canada. Phone: (403) 220-5721. Fax: (403) 289-9311. E-mail: slwong{at}acs.ucalgary.ca.
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