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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, February 2000, p. 638-642, Vol. 66, No. 2
0099-2240/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

A Protein Disulfide Isomerase Gene Fusion Expression System That Increases the Extracellular Productivity of Bacillus brevis

Tsutomu Kajino,1,* Chikara Ohto,2 Masayoshi Muramatsu,2 Shusei Obata,2 Shigezo Udaka,3 Yukio Yamada,1 and Haruo Takahashi1

Toyota Central Research & Development Laboratories, Inc., Nagakute, Aichi 480-1192,1 Bio Research Lab, Toyota Motor Corporation, Toyota, Aichi 471-8572,2 and Department of Fermentation Science, Tokyo University of Agriculture, Setagaya, Tokyo 156-8502,3 Japan

Received 30 August 1999/Accepted 30 November 1999

We have developed a versatile Bacillus brevis expression and secretion system based on the use of fungal protein disulfide isomerase (PDI) as a gene fusion partner. Fusion with PDI increased the extracellular production of heterologous proteins (light chain of immunoglobulin G, 8-fold; geranylgeranyl pyrophosphate synthase, 12-fold). Linkage to PDI prevented the aggregation of the secreted proteins, resulting in high-level accumulation of fusion proteins in soluble and biologically active forms. We also show that the disulfide isomerase activity of PDI in a fusion protein is responsible for the suppression of the aggregation of the protein with intradisulfide, whereas aggregation of the protein without intradisulfide was prevented even when the protein was fused to a mutant PDI whose two active sites were disrupted, suggesting that another PDI function, such as chaperone-like activity, synergistically prevented the aggregation of heterologous proteins in the PDI fusion expression system.


* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Toyota Central Research & Development Laboratories, Inc., Nagakute, Aichi 480-1192, Japan. Phone: 81-561-63-8491. Fax: 81-561-63-6498. E-mail: e0846{at}mosk.tytlabs.co.jp.


Applied and Environmental Microbiology, February 2000, p. 638-642, Vol. 66, No. 2
0099-2240/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.