Lars Anderson

Product inhibition of five Hypocrea jecorina cellulases.

Product inhibition of cellulolytic enzymes has been deemed a critical factor in the industrial saccharification of cellulosic biomass. Several investigations have addressed this problem using crude enzyme preparations or commercial (mixed) cellulase products, but quantitative information on individual cellulases hydrolyzing insoluble cellulose remains insufficient. Such knowledge is necessary to pinpoint and quantify inhibitory weak-links in cellulose hydrolysis, but has proven challenging to come by. Here we show that product inhibition of mono-component cellulases hydrolyzing unmodified cellulose may be monitored by calorimetry. The key advantage of this approach is that it directly measures the rate of hydrolysis while being essentially blind to the background of added product. We investigated the five major cellulases from Hypocrea jecorina (anamorph: Tricoderma reesei), Cel7A (formerly CBH1), Cel6A (CBH2), Cel7B (EG1), Cel5A (EG2) and Cel12A (EG3), for their sensitivity to the products glucose and cellobiose. The strongest inhibition was found for Cel7A, which showed a 50% activity-loss in 19 mM cellobiose (IC(50)=19 mM). The other exoglucanase, Cel6A, was much less inhibited by cellobiose, but showed the highest sensitivity to glucose among all investigated enzymes. The endoglucanases Cel12A and Cel7B were moderately inhibited by cellobiose (IC(50)=60-80 mM), and weakly inhibited by glucose (IC(50)=350-380 mM). The highest resistance to both products was found for Cel5A, which retained about 75% of its activity at the highest investigated concentrations (respectively 65 mM cellobiose and 1000 mM glucose).

The role of subsite +2 of the Trichoderma reesei beta-mannanase TrMan5A in hydrolysis and transglycosylation

The N-terminal catalytic module of β-mannanase TrMan5A from the filamentous fungus Trichoderma reesei is classified into family 5 of glycoside hydrolases. It is further classified in clan A with a (β/α)8 barrel configuration and has two catalytic glutamates (E169 and E276). It has at least five other residues conserved in family 5. Sequence alignment revealed that an arginine (R171 in TrMan5A) is semi-conserved among β-mannanases in family 5. In a previously published mannobiose complex structure, this residue is positioned in hydrogen bonding distance from the C2 hydroxyl group of the mannose residue bound at the +2 subsite. To study the function of R171, mutants of this residue were constructed. The results show that arginine 171 is important for substrate binding and transglycosylation. A mutant of TrMan5A with the substitution R171K displayed retained activity on polymeric galactomannan but reduced activity on oligosaccharides due to an increase of Km. While the wild-type enzyme produces mannobiose as dominant product from mannotetraose the R171K mutant shows an altered product profile, producing mannotriose and mannose. The cleavage pattern of mannotetraose was analysed with a method using isotope labelled water (H218O) and mass spectrometry which showed that the preferred productive binding mode of mannotetraose was shifted from subsite −2 to +2 in the wild-type to subsite −3 to +1 in the R171K mutant. Significant differences in product formation after manno-oligosaccharide incubation showed that the wild-type enzyme can perform transglycosylation on to saccharide acceptors while the R171K mutant cannot, likely due to loss of acceptor affinity. Interestingly, both enzymes show the ability to perform alcoholysis reactions with methanol and butanol, forming new β-linked glyco-conjugates. Furthermore, it appears that the wild-type enzyme produces mainly mannobiose conjugates using M4 as substrate, while in contrast the R171K mutant produces mainly mannotriose conjugates, due to the altered subsite binding.

An Aspergillus nidulans GH26 endo-β-mannanase with a novel degradation pattern on highly substituted galactomannans.

The activity and substrate degradation pattern of a novel Aspergillus nidulans GH26 endo-β-mannanase (AnMan26A) was investigated using two galactomannan substrates with varying amounts of galactopyranosyl residues. The AnMan26A was characterized in parallel with the GH26 endomannanase from Podospora anserina (PaMan26A) and three GH5 endomannanases from A. nidulans and Trichoderma reesei (AnMan5A, AnMan5C and TrMan5A). The initial rates and the maximal degree of enzymatically catalyzed conversion of locust bean gum and guar gum galactomannans were determined. The hydrolysis product profile at maximal degree of conversion was determined using DNA sequencer-Assisted Saccharide analysis in High throughput (DASH). This is the first reported use of this method for analyzing galactomannooligosaccharides. AnMan26A and PaMan26A were found to have a novel substrate degradation pattern on the two galactomannan substrates. On the highly substituted guar gum AnMan26A and PaMan26A reached 35-40% as their maximal degree of conversion whereas the three tested GH5 endomannanases only reached 8-10% as their maximal degree of conversion. α-Galactosyl-mannose was identified as the dominant degradation product resulting from AnMan26A and PaMan26A action on guar gum, strongly indicating that these two enzymes can accommodate galactopyranosyl residues in the -1 and in the +1 subsite. The degradation of α-6(4)-6(3)-di-galactosyl-mannopentaose by AnMan26A revealed accommodation of galactopyranosyl residues in the -2, -1 and +1 subsite of the enzyme. Accommodation of galactopyranosyl residues in subsites -2 and +1 has not been observed for other characterized endomannanases to date. Docking analysis of galactomannooligosaccharides in available crystal structures and homology models supported the conclusions drawn from the experimental results. This newly discovered diversity of substrate degradation patterns demonstrates an expanded functionality of fungal endomannanases, than hitherto reported.