Ljudmila Kulakova

Cloning of formate dehydrogenase gene from a methanol-utilizing bacterium Mycobacterium vaccae N10.

The gene of NAD+-dependent formate dehydrogenase (FDH) from Mycobacterium vaccae N10 was cloned into Escherichia coli by hybridization with digoxigenin-labeled DNA probes, which were prepared by amplification of the chromosomal DNA from the bacterium by the polymerase chain reaction with degenerate primers. The primers were designed on the basis of the most conserved parts of known sequences of FDH from different organisms. An open-reading frame of 1200 bp exhibited extremely high sequence similarity to the FDH gene of Pseudomonas sp. 101. The deduced amino acid sequence of FDH from Mycobacterium vaccae N10 (McFDH) was identical to that of Pseudomonas sp. 101 (PsFDH) except for two amino acid residues: isoleucine-35 (threonine in PsFDH) and glutamate-61 (lysine in PsFDH). The physicochemical properties of both enzymes appeared to be closely similar to each other, but the thermostability of McFDH was a little lower than that of PsFDH. To examine the role of the two amino acid residues in the thermostability of the enzymes, glutamate-61 of McFDH was replaced by glutaminyl, prolyl and lysyl residues by site-directed mutagenesis. All the mutant enzymes showed higher thermostability than the wild-type McFDH. The negative charge of glutamate-61 contributes to the stability of the wild-type enzyme being lower than that of PsFDH.

Conversion of α-keto acids to D-amino acids by coupling of four enzyme reactions

Abstract We developed a new procedure for stereospecific conversion of various α-keto acids to the corresponding d -amino acids with four thermostable enzymes: d -amino acid aminotransferase, alanine racemase, l -alanine dehydrogenase and formate dehydrogenase. Optically pure d -enantiomers of glutamate, phenylalanine and tyrosine were obtained with high conversion rates.

Cold-active DnaK of an Antarctic psychrotroph Shewanella sp. Ac10 supporting the growth of dnaK-null mutant of Escherichia coli at cold temperatures

Shewanella sp. Ac10 is a psychrotrophic bacterium isolated from the Antarctica that actively grows at such low temperatures as 0°C. Immunoblot analyses showed that a heat-shock protein DnaK is inducibly formed by the bacterium at 24°C, which is much lower than the temperatures causing heat shock in mesophiles such as Escherichia coli. We found that the Shewanella DnaK (SheDnaK) shows much higher ATPase activity at low temperatures than the DnaK of E. coli (EcoDnaK): a characteristic of a cold-active enzyme. The recombinant SheDnaK gene supported neither the growth of a dnaK-null mutant of E. coli at 43°C nor λ phage propagation at an even lower temperature, 30°C. However, the recombinant SheDnaK gene enabled the E. coli mutant to grow at 15°C. This is the first report of a DnaK supporting the growth of a dnaK-null mutant at low temperatures.