Previous Article | Next Article ![]()
Applied and Environmental Microbiology, December 1998, p. 4774-4781, Vol. 64, No. 12
Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology,
Cook College, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08901
Received 11 May 1998/Accepted 10 September 1998
Two thermostable endocellulases, CelA and CelB, were purified from
Thermotoga neapolitana. CelA (molecular mass, 29 kDa; pI 4.6) is optimally active at pH 6.0 at 95°C, while CelB (molecular mass, 30 kDa; pI 4.1) has a broader optimal pH range (pH 6.0 to 6.6) at
106°C. Both enzymes are characterized by a high level of activity
(high Vmax value and low apparent
Km value) with carboxymethyl cellulose; the
specific activities of CelA and CelB are 1,219 and 1,536 U/mg,
respectively. With p-nitrophenyl cellobioside the
Vmax values of CelA and CelB are 69.2 and 18.4 U/mg, respectively, while the Km values are
0.97 and 0.3 mM, respectively. The major end products of cellulose
hydrolysis, glucose and cellobiose, competitively inhibit CelA, and
CelB. The Ki values for CelA are 0.44 M for
glucose and 2.5 mM for cellobiose; the Ki
values for CelB are 0.2 M for glucose and 1.16 mM for cellobiose. CelB
preferentially cleaves larger cellooligomers, producing cellobiose as
the end product; it also exhibits significant transglycosylation
activity. This enzyme is highly thermostable and has half-lives of 130 min at 106°C and 26 min at 110°C. A single clone encoding the
celA and celB genes was identified by screening
a T. neapolitana genomic library in Escherichia
coli. The celA gene encodes a 257-amino-acid protein, while celB encodes a 274-amino-acid protein.
Both proteins belong to family 12 of the glycosyl hydrolases, and the
two proteins are 60% similar to each other. Northern blots of T. neapolitana mRNA revealed that celA and
celB are monocistronic messages, and both genes are
inducible by cellobiose and are repressed by glucose.
0099-2240/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Purification, Characterization, and Molecular
Analysis of Thermostable Cellulases CelA and CelB from
Thermotoga neapolitana

*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of
Biochemistry and Microbiology, Cook College, Rutgers University, 76 Lipman Drive, New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8525. Phone: (732) 932-9763, ext. 328. Fax: (732) 932-8965. E-mail:
Eveleigh{at}aesop.rutgers.edu.
Paper no. D-01111-01-98 of the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station.
Present address: Department of Animal Science & Technology,
College of Agriculture & Life Sciences, Seoul National University, Suweon 441-744, and Animal Resources Research Center, Kon-Kuk University, Seoul 133-701, Korea.
This article has been cited by other articles:
Copyright © 2009 by the American Society for Microbiology. For an alternate route to Journals.ASM.org, visit: http://intl-journals.asm.org | More Info»