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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, October 2005, p. 5823-5827, Vol. 71, No. 10
0099-2240/05/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/AEM.71.10.5823-5827.2005
Copyright © 2005, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Use of Random and Saturation Mutageneses To Improve the Properties of Thermus aquaticus Amylomaltase for Efficient Production of Cycloamyloses

Biochemical Research Laboratory, Ezaki Glico Co., Ltd., 4-5-6 Utajima, Nishiyodogawa-ku, Osaka 555-8502, Japan,¹ Biomaterials Processing Fundamental Research Laboratories, NEC Co., Ltd., 34 Miyukigaoka, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8501, Japan,² Department of Applied Physics, College of Humanities and Sciences, Nihon University, 3-25-40 Sakurajousui, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo 156-8550, Japan³

Received 20 January 2005/ Accepted 15 May 2005

Amylomaltase from Thermus aquaticus catalyzes intramolecular transglycosylation of -1,4 glucans to produce cyclic -1,4 glucans (cycloamyloses) with degrees of polymerization of 22 and higher. Although the amylomaltase mainly catalyzes the transglycosylation reaction, it also has weak hydrolytic activity, which results in a reduction in the yield of the cycloamyloses. In order to obtain amylomaltase with less hydrolytic activity, random mutagenesis was perfromed for the enzyme gene. Tyr54 (Y54) was identified as the amino acid involved in the hydrolytic activity of the enzyme. When Y54 was replaced with all other amino acids by site-directed mutagenesis, the hydrolytic activities of the mutated enzymes were drastically altered. The hydrolytic activities of the Y54G, Y54P, Y54T, and Y54W mutated enzymes were remarkably reduced compared with that of the wild-type enzyme, while those of the Y54F and Y54K mutated enzymes were similar to that of the wild-type enzyme. Introducing an amino acid replacement at Y54 also significantly affected the cyclization activity of the amylomaltase. The Y54A, Y54L, Y54R, and Y54S mutated enzymes exhibited cyclization activity that was approximately twofold higher than that of the wild-type enzyme. When the Y54G mutated enzyme was employed for cycloamylose production, the yield of cycloamyloses was more than 90%, and there was no decrease until the end of the reaction.