Purification, Characterization and Crystal Structure of Isoamylase from Thermophilic Bacteria Rhodothermus marinus

The isoamylase gene from Rhodothermus marinus was cloned into and expressed in Escherichia coli Top 10. As a result of characterization of purified R. marinus isoamylase. the enzyme had an optimum pH of 4.0 and optimum temperature of 70℃. Thermal inactivation studies of the purified R. marinus isoamylase revealed the enzymatic activity to be uninfluenced after one hour incubation at 60℃. These results suggest that R. marinus isoamylase has high thermostability. The crystallization and crystal structure analysis of R. marinus isoamylase was performed. The three-dimensional structure at 1.9Å resolution was determined in complex with the panose. R. marinus isoamylase is composed of three domains N, A and C, and, has a (β/α)8-barrel in domain A. The secondary structural alignments of the R. marinus isoamylase and P. amyloderamosa isoamylase was carried out. They have the four active-site consensus regions characteristic of the α-amylase family. And the essential residue of the α-amylase family (D359, E395, and D467) was conserved in these enzymes. R. marinus isoamylase has shorter loops than P. amyloderamosa isoamylase. And R. marinus isoamylase had no Ca2+ binding site. These results are thought to be factors of thermostability of R. marinus isoamylase.