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Heterologous Expression and Characterization of a Novel Chitinase (ChiEn1) from Coprinopsis cinerea and its Synergism in the Degradation of Chitin Xin Niu, Jiang-Sheng Zhou, Yan-Xin Wang, Cuicui Liu, Zhonghua Liu, and Sheng Yuan J. Agric. Food Chem., Just Accepted Manuscript • DOI: 10.1021/acs.jafc.7b02278 • Publication Date (Web): 19 Jul 2017 Downloaded from http://pubs.acs.org on July 21, 2017
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Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
Heterologous Expression and Characterization of a Novel Chitinase (ChiEn1) from Coprinopsis cinerea and its Synergism in the Degradation of Chitin
Xin Niu§, Jiang-Sheng Zhou§, Yan-Xin Wang, Cui-Cui Liu, Zhong-Hua Liu*, Sheng Yuan* Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Microbes and Microbial Functional Genomics, Jiangsu Engineering and Technology Research Center for Industrialization of Microbial Resources, College of Life Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, PR China 210023
Running Title: Chitinase from Coprinopsis cinerea
§ Co-first authors * To whom correspondence should be addressed: Dr Sheng Yuan, College of Life Science, Nanjing Normal University, 1 Wenyuan Rd, Xianlin University Park, Nanjing, 210023, PR China. Tel: 86-25-85891067 (O), Fax: 86-25-85891067 (O), E-mail:
[email protected] Dr Zhong-hua Liu, College of Life Science, Nanjing Normal University, 1 Wenyuan Rd, Xianlin University
Park,
Nanjing,
210023,
PR
China.
Tel:
[email protected],
1
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Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
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Abstract
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Chitinase ChiEn1 did not hydrolyze insoluble chitin but showed hydrolysis and transglycosylation
3
activities towards chitin-oligosaccharides. Interestingly, the addition of ChiEn1 increased the amount of
4
reducing sugars released from chitin powder by endochitinase ChiIII by 105.0%, and among the
5
released reducing sugars the amount of (GlcNAc)2 was increased by 149.5% whereas the amount of
6
GlcNAc was decreased by 10.3%. The percentage of GlcNAc in the products of chitin powder with the
7
combined ChiIII and ChiEn1 was close to that in the products of chitin-oligosaccharides with ChiEn1,
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rather than that with ChiIII. These results indicate that chitin polymers are first degraded into chitin
9
oligosaccharides by ChiIII and the latter are further degraded to monomers and dimers by ChiEn1, and
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the synergistic action of ChiEn1 and ChiIII is involved in the efficient degradation of chitin in cell
11
walls during pileus autolysis. The structure modeling explores the molecular base of ChiEn1 action.
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Keywords: Coprinopsis cinerea; chitin; chitinase; hydrolysis; transglycosylation
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Introduction
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Chitin, an insoluble β-1,4-linked N-acetyl-D-glucosamine polysaccharide, is one of the primary
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structural components of the fungal cell wall.
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cell walls, such as cell division and separation in yeast,
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branching of hyphae, and hyphal autolysis in filamentous fungi
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autolysis of fruiting bodies in basidiomycetes, 4,5 chitin polymers in cell walls need to be continuously
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remodeled, presumably through the enzymatic digestion of chitin polymers by chitinases. 4-6 Chitinases
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are divided into endochitinases, exochitinases and β-1, 4-N-acetyl-glucosaminidases. Endochitinases
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randomly
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chitinoligosaccharides. Exochitinases progressively release chitinbiose from the non-reducing or
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reducing end of chitin chains; β-1,4-N-acetyl-glucosaminidases catalyze the release of terminal,
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non-reducing N-acetylglucosamine residues from chitin or split chitinbiose into two monomers. 6-8
degrade
chitin
from
any
1
point
In physiological processes requiring the digestion of
along
2
the germination of spores, tip growth and
the
3
as well as morphogenesis and
polymer
chain
to
varying-length
43
Autolysis of the fruiting body of basidiomycete coprinoid mushrooms exhibits a remarkable feature:
44
the complete disintegration and liquefaction of the mature pileus for the efficient dispersal of
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basidia.9,10 The disintegration and liquefaction of the mature pileus were suggested to result from the
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degradation of cell walls by various glycoside hydrolases, such as chitinases and glucanases.
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common fungal cell walls, the cell wall of basidiomycete fruiting bodies is primarily composed of
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β-1,3-glucans with β-1,6-linked branches, chitin and proteins,
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architecture. 15,16 In the central core of the fungal cell wall architecture, chitin chains are attached to the
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non-reducing end of β-1,3/1,6-glucans.
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involved in the cell wall autolysis of basidiomycete fruiting bodies.
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and purified a group of glycoside hydrolases, including a β-1,3-glucosidase, an exo-β-1,3-glucanase, an
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endo-β-1,3-glucanase, and partially purified a β-glucosidase, from the pileus extraction of C. cinerea
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fruiting bodies; these enzymes showed highly efficient and synergistic action on the β-1,3-glucan
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backbones of the C. cinerea cell wall during fruiting body autolysis.
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exochitinase (ChiB1) gene and a putative class III endochitinase (ChiIII) gene were dominantly
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expressed among eight predicted chitinase genes in the genome of Coprinopsis cinerea, and their
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expression levels increased with the maturation of the fruiting bodies.
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the exochitinase ChiB1 from the pilei of C. cinerea fruiting bodies 22 and heterologously expressed and
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characterized the recombinant chitinase ChiIII from Coprinopsis cinerea.
1,17,18
12-15
9,11
As
together forming a fine wall
Therefore, glucanases and chitinases are suggested to be 4,5,10,11,19-22
22
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Recently, we isolated
We also found that an
We purified and characterized
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We found that removal of
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the chitin chains by chitinases could release β-1,3/1,6-glucan molecules to promote the degradation of
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the cell walls to work in synergy with β-1,3-glucanases for pileus autolysis. 22
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In this study, we further report that the gene expression of a putative endochitinase (ChiEn1) also
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increased with the maturation of fruiting bodies. Characterization of chitinase ChiEn1 shows that
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ChiEn1 acts synergistically with the previously reported endochitinase ChiIII to efficiently hydrolyze
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insoluble chitin polymers, elucidating the role of ChiEn1 in the degradation of chitin components in
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cell walls for the autolysis of C. cinerea fruiting bodies.
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Materials and methods
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Chemicals—Chitin powder, 85% deacetylated chitosan, sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC-Na),
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glycol chitosan, laminarin, and (GlcNAc)1-3-pNP were purchased from Sigma-Aldrich Co. LLC (USA).
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N-acetylglucosamine, chitinbiose, chitintriose, chitintetraose, chitinpentose, chitinhexaose, and
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chitinheptaose were purchased from Elicityl Oligotech (France). Chitohexaose hydrochloride was
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purchased from Zzstandard Shanghai Zzbio Co., Ltd. (China). Colloidal chitin and glycol chitin were
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prepared from chitin powder according to the methods described by Sandhya et al.24 and Li et al.,25
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respectively.
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Strains, plasmid and culture conditions—C. cinerea (5026+5172) ATCC 56838 was purchased from
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ATCC (U. S. A.). Fruiting bodies were cultivated as described by Zhou et al. 23 Pichia pastoris GS115
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and the expression vector pPICZαA were purchased from Invitrogen (U. S. A.).
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Cloning, expression, and purification of chitinase ChiEn1—The sequence of chitinase ChiEn1 was
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obtained from the genome of C. cinerea okayama7 #130 in GenBank at NCBI (accession: EAU81461).
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The signal peptide was analyzed using the Signal P 4.1 server (http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/services
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/SignalP). The isolation and purification of total RNA from the pilei of C. cinerea fruiting bodies,
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synthesis of first-strand cDNA from DNA-free RNA, and PCR amplification of cDNA coding the
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mature ChiEn1 with the forward primer AGAGAGGCTGAAGCTGAATTCATGGCCTACGTCCC
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TGTCG and reverse primer TGTTCTAGAAAGCTGGCGGCCGCCTGCCCCATACCCCTCGA were
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performed as described by Niu et al.
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were digested respectively with EcoR I and Not I and then ligated to generate the plasmid
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pPICZαAChiEn1 using the ClonExpressTM II/One Step Cloning Kit (Vazyme, China). Transformation
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of P. pastoris spheroplasts with pPICZαAChiEn1 and the selection of transformants with
21
The PCR products of chiEn1 cDNA and the plasmid pPICZαA
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pPICZαAChiEn1 were performed as described by Niu et al. 21 Cultivation of transformant cells, inducing the expression of recombinant ChiEn1, and the isolation
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and purification of recombinant ChiEn1 were performed as described by Niu et al. 21
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Protein analysis of the recombinant enzyme—The purity and molecular size of purified ChiEn1
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were analyzed by SDS-PAGE.
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Bradford method using bovine serum albumin as the standard.
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peptide fragments from purified ChiEn1 by trypsin digestion was analyzed using the UltrafleXtreme
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MALDI-TOF/TOF MS (Bruker Daltonics, Germany) as described by Zhou et al. 23
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Chitinase activity assays—The amount of N-acetylglucosamine or reducing sugars released from the
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chitin or the related polysaccharides by ChiEn1 was analyzed using the 3,5-dinitrosalicylic acid (DNS)
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method. 28 A volume of 200 µL of a reaction mixture containing 2 µM ChiEn1 and 1% chitin or related
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polysaccharides in 50 mM NaAc-HAc (pH 5.0) was incubated at 800 rpm, 37 °C for 4 h. After
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incubation, the reaction mixtures were combined with 200 µL of a DNS reagent, heated at 100 °C for
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15 min, and then placed on ice for 2 min. After centrifugation, the absorbance of the supernatants at
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520 nm was measured. To determine the synergistic action of ChiEn1 and ChiIII, 200-µL aliquots of
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reaction mixtures that contained 1% chitin powder and 1.0 µM of ChiEn1, ChiIII, ChiEn1 + ChiIII, or
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heat-inactivated ChiEn1 + ChiIII in 50 mM NaAc-HAc (pH 5.0), with other parameters as listed above,
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were used. To determine the effect of temperature on the hydrolysis activity of ChiEn1 towards glycol
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chitin, the reaction mixtures were incubated at 10–90 °C, with all other parameters identical to those
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listed above. To determine the effect of the pH on the hydrolysis activity of ChiEn1 towards glycol
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chitin, reaction mixtures (as above) with pH in the range of 3–9 (using 50 mM NaAc-HAc buffer (pH
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3.0–6.0), 50 mM Na2HPO4-NaH2PO4 buffer (pH 6.0–7.5), and 50 mM Tris-HCl buffer (pH 7.5–9.0))
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were used. To determine the stability of ChiEn1, the reaction mixtures (as above) were first incubated
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at 10–90 °C or at pH 6.0–9.0 in the absence of substrate for 1 h and then combined with glycol chitin to
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react. To determine the effect of metal ions or the metal ion-chelator EDTA on the hydrolysis activity of
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ChiEn1 towards glycol chitin, ChiEn1 was first incubated with 1 mM of the indicated metal ion salt or
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1 mM or 2 mM EDTA in 50 mM NaAc-HAc (pH 5.0) in the absence of substrate at 37 °C for 1 h and
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then combined with glycol chitin to react under the same conditions as listed above. One unit of
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chitinase activity was defined as the amount of enzyme that liberates the reducing sugar corresponding
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to 1 µmol of N-acetyl-D-glucosamine per minute.
26
The protein concentration of purified ChiEn1 was measured by the 27
The amino acid sequence of partial
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The amount of p-nitrophenol that was released from pNP derivatives of chitin oligosaccharides by
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ChiEn1 was analyzed using the chitinase assay kit (Sigma CS0980, USA). A volume of 100 µL of a
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reaction mixture containing 0.067 µM ChiEn1 and 1 mg/mL of (GlcNAc)3-pNP, (GlcNAc)2-pNP, or
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GlcNAc-pNP in assay buffer was incubated at 37 °C at 800 rpm for 20 min. Then, the reaction mixture
125
was combined with 200 µL of stop solution and the absorbance was measured at 405 nm. The enzyme
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unit was defined as the amount of enzyme that released 1.0 µmol of p-nitrophenol from the indicated
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substrate per min. To determine the reaction kinetics, reaction mixtures containing 0.022 µM chitinase
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ChiEn1 and varying concentrations of (GlcNAc)3-pNP or (GlcNAc)2-pNP (0.125 to 3 mg/mL) were
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analyzed. The reaction rate V was plotted directly against the substrate concentration. OriginPro 8 SR0
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(OriginLab Corporation, Northampton, USA) was used to fit a hyperbola to the data and to determine
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Km and Vmax. 29
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All above assays reported in this study were done in triplicate in each of three independent
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experiments.
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HPLC analysis—For the HPAEC-PAD analysis of products released from chitin powder by ChiEn1
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alone or in cooperation with ChiIII, a volume of 200 µL of a reaction mixture containing 1% chitin
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powder and 1.2 µM ChiEn1, ChiIII, ChiEn1 + ChiIII, or heat-inactivated ChiEn1 + ChiIII in 50 mM
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NaAc-HAc (pH 5.0) was incubated at 37 ˚C for 4 h, then combined with boiled water at 100 °C to a
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final volume of 1 mL and heated at 100 °C for 10 min to stop the reaction. For the HPAEC-PAD
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analysis of the products released from chitin oligosaccharides by ChiEn1, 20 µL of a reaction mixture
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containing 100 nmol of chitin oligosaccharide and the appropriate amount of ChiEn1 (see results for
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details) in 50 mM NaAc-HAc (pH 5.0) was incubated at 37 ˚C for the indicated times, then were
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combined with boiled water at 100 °C to a final volume of 1 mL to stop the reaction. For the
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HPAEC-PAD analysis of the products released from the pNP derivatives of chitin oligosaccharide by
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ChiEn1, 100 µL of a reaction mixture containing 100 nmol of (GlcNAc)3-pNP, or (GlcNAc)2-pNP, or
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GlcNAc-pNP, and 0.055 µM of ChiEn1 50 mM NaAc-HAc (pH 5.0) was incubated at 37 ˚C for 15 min
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and then combined with boiled water (100 °C) to a final volume of 1 mL to stop the reaction. After
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centrifugation and filtration, the above reaction mixtures were loaded on and eluted from a CarboPac
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PA-1 column (4×250 mm, Dionex) with a PA-1 guard column equipped on a 940 Professional IC Vario
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system with an IC Amperometric detector (Metrohm), as described by Niu et al. 21
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For the TSKgel Amide-80 HPLC analysis of the anomeric configurations of products released from 6
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the chitin oligosaccharides by ChiEn1, 50 µL of a reaction mixture containing 100 nmol of chitin
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oligosaccharide and 0.8 µM ChiEn1 in 50 mM NaAc-HAc (pH 5.0) was incubated on ice for 5 min and
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then combined with ice-cooled water to 200 µL. After filtration, the reaction mixtures were loaded on a
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TSK gel Amide 80 column (4.6×250 mm, Tosch) and eluted with 75% acetonitrile in ultrapure water at
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a flow rate of 0.8 mL·min-1 at 25 °C. Chitin oligosaccharides in the eluate were detected by their UV
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absorbance at 210 nm and quantified by measuring their peak areas with an Agilent 1100 HPLC system
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(Agilent, USA). 30
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MALDI-TOF MS analysis of transglycosylation products—The transglycosylation products in the
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reaction mixture were analyzed by mass spectrometry. 1 µL samples from the reaction mixture was
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mixed with 2 µL of a matrix solution (15 mg/mL 2,5-dihydroxybenzoic acid, in 30% acetonitrile), and
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then spotted directly on a target plate and immediately dried using a heat gun. MS spectra of the
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products were acquired using an UltrafleXtreme MALDI-TOF/TOF MS (Bruker Daltonics, Germany)
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with gridless ion optics under control of Flexcontrol 4.1. The experiments were conducted using an
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accelerating potential of 24 kV in the reflector mode. 31
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Protein sequence analysis—The conserved domains in ChiEn1 were analyzed using NCBI's
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conserved domain database.32 A phylogenetic tree was generated based on catalytic domain amino acid
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sequences of chitinase proteins by the neighbor-joining method using MEGA v.6.06 software.33 ChiEn1
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catalytic domain amino acid sequences and other chitinases catalytic domain amino acid sequences
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were aligned to determine their sequence identity using DNAMAN software (version 7.212, Lynnon
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Corp., Quebec, Canada).
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Protein structure analysis—The three-dimensional model structure of ChiEn1 was predicted using
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I-TASSER.
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C-score was chosen for further accuracy analysis and identified by TM-align (http://zhang.
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bioinformatics.ku.edu/I-TASSER/). Structures were visualized using Chimera.37
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Insoluble chitin binding assays—Insoluble chitin binding studies were conducted as described by
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Neeraja et al.38 using 1 mg of chitin powder or colloidal chitin incubated with 20-100 µg of ChiEn1 in
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1 ml of 50 mM sodium acetate buffer (pH 5.0) for 1 h, in a gel shaker at 450 rpm at 4°C. After
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incubation, reactions were stopped by centrifugation (12000 g, 10 min, 4 °C). Unbound protein in the
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supernatant was determined by measuring the absorbance at 280 nm in spectrophotometer. The bound
180
protein was calculated as the total protein minus the unbound protein measured.
34-36
Among five models produced by I-TASSER, the I-TASSER model with the highest
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Results
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Cloning, heterologous expression and purification of enzyme
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In the previous report, we showed that the gene transcription of a putative endochitinase (ChiEn1)
184
exhibited an increasing trend with the maturation of fruiting bodies, but there was no statistical
185
significance because the gene expression abundance of this enzyme was dramatically lower than that of
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exochitinase ChiB1 and endochitinase (ChiIII).
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cDNA template for DNA amplification, we found that chitinase ChiEn1 indeed expressed highly in the
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pileus of fruiting bodies and the gene expression of chitinase ChiEn1 peaked when the pileus opened
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90° during maturation of fruiting bodies (Fig. 1A), indicating that ChiEn1 plays a role in the
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disintegration and liquefaction of the mature pileus. Thus, we cloned, heterologously expressed and
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characterized the chitinase ChiEn1 from C. cinerea.
22
In this study, by increasing of the amount of the
192
The endochitinase ChiEn1 from C. cinerea okayama7 (#130) consisted of 465 amino acids with a
193
calculated molecular weight of 48808 Da. Analysis via the Signal 4.1 server (http://www.cbs.dtu.dk
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/services/ SignalP) showed that the N-terminal 1-63 nucleotides sequence encodes a signal peptide
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(MQFKTSFFALLAGFLASSTLA). The nucleotide sequence for the signal peptide was removed from
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the chiEn1 gene such that the extracellular secretion of the expression product was mediated by the
197
N-terminal α-factor signal peptide of the plasmid pPICZαAChiEn1. Recombinant mature ChiEn1
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formed a fusion protein with the C-terminal 6×histidines of pPICZαAChiEn1, and the mature protein
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has a calculated molecular weight of 50038 Da. After six days of cultivation for inducing expression,
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the hydrolysis activity of the culture medium towards the glycol chitin of the recombinant ChiEn1
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expression strain reached 0.151 U mL-1.
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The recombinant ChiEn1 was purified from the culture medium by Ni-affinity chromatography with
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the yield of 0.05 mg mL-1 culture medium, and the specific activity of 0.451 U mg-1 protein towards
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glycol chitin. SDS-PAGE analysis showed that there was an extra protein band at approximately 50
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kDa in the culture medium of the recombinant ChiEn1 expression strain compared to the control strain
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with an empty plasmid. The recombinant ChiEn1 purified from the culture medium by Ni-affinity
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chromatography appeared at this position as a single band on SDS-PAGE (Fig. 1B). When this protein
208
band was analyzed using MALDI TOF/TOF MS, the amino acid sequences of the trypsinized protein
209
fragments were confirmed as consistent with the amino acid sequence of the putative endochitinase
210
(ChiEn1) (GenBank accession: EAU81461) (Fig. 1C, D) 8
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Enzymatic features
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The hydrolysis activity of the chitinase ChiEn1 against several chitin-derived polysaccharide substrates
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showed that ChiEn1 did not act on insoluble chitin powder and colloidal chitin but did act on soluble
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glycol chitin and 85% deacetylated chitosan (Table 1). In addition, ChiEn1 did not hydrolyze soluble
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glycol chitosan. However, a synergistic action of ChiEn1 and the previously reported endochitinase
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ChiIII from C. cinerea 21 on chitinous polysaccharides was observed. As shown in Table 2, the amount
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of reducing sugars released from chitin powder, colloidal chitin and glycol chitin by a combination of
219
ChiEn1 and ChiIII increased by 105.0%, 21.0%, 31.3%, respectively, compared with the sum of the
220
amount of reducing sugars released by ChiIII or ChiEn1 alone; however, the amount of reducing sugars
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released from 85% deacetylated chitosan by the combination of ChiEn1 and ChiIII decreased by 26.4%
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compared with the sum of the amount of reducing sugars released by ChiIII or ChiEn1 alone. The
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hydrolysis activity of chitinase ChiEn1 on several chitin oligosaccharide substrates showed that
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ChiEn1 did not degrade chitinbiose, whereas it degraded chitintriose or longer chitin oligosaccharides
225
(Table 1). The capacity of ChiEn1 to degrade (GlcNAc)4-6 was more than three times higher than its
226
ability to degrade (GlcNAc)3. The hydrolysis activity of chitinase ChiEn1 on several nitrophenyl
227
derivatives of chitin oligosaccharides showed that ChiEn1 hydrolyzed (GlcNAc)3-pNP and
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(GlcNAc)2-pNP to release the colored pNP but did not hydrolyze GlcNAc-pNP. The hydrolysis activity
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towards (GlcNAc)2-pNP was higher than that towards (GlcNAc)3-pNP (Table 1).
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Some metal ions affected the hydrolysis activity of ChiEn1 towards glycol chitin (Table 3).
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Compared with the control that lacked the addition of metal ions, the ChiEn1 activity was enhanced to
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295% and 170% by the presence of 1 mM Mn2+ and Co2+, respectively, whereas the ChiEn1 activity
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was inhibited to 9.6% and 27.3% by the presence of 1 mM Al3+ and Cu2+, respectively. The ChiEn1
234
activity was inhibited to 79.7% and 0% by the presence of 1 mM and 2 mM chelator EDTA,
235
respectively. Therefore, Mn2+ is essential for ChiEn1 activity.
236
At pH 5.0, the maximum activity of ChiEn1 towards glycol chitin occurred at 40˚C, whereas below
237
or above 40˚C, the hydrolysis activity quickly decreased (Fig. 2A1). The temperature stability of
238
ChiEn1 is poor, and its hydrolysis activity after being incubated for 30 min at 20–70 ˚C decreased with
239
increasing incubation temperature (Fig. 2A2). At 37 ˚C, the optimal pH for the hydrolysis activity of
240
ChiEn1 towards glycol chitin was pH 5.0, whereas at below or above 5.0, the hydrolysis activity of 9
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ChiEn1 decreased (Fig. 2B1). The pH stability of ChiEn1 is good, and after incubation of ChiEn1 over
242
a broad range of pH (4.0–9.0) for 30 min, its hydrolysis activity did not significantly change (Fig.
243
2B2).
244
The effect of substrate concentration on the hydrolysis activity of ChiEn1 towards (GlcNAc)3-pNP
245
and (GlcNAc)2-pNP was analyzed at 37˚C and pH 5.0 (Fig. 2C). ChiEn1 exhibited a Km of 2342 µM, a
246
kcat of 1.13 s-1 and a Vmax of 1.35 µM min-1 mg protein-1 for (GlcNAc)3-pNP and a Km of 1254 µM, a
247
kcat of 2.28 s-1 and a Vmax of 2.74 µM min-1 mg protein-1 for (GlcNAc)2-pNP.
248 249
Hydrolysis products
250
The high performance anion-exchange chromatography with pulsed amperometric detection
251
(HPAEC-PAD) was used to analyze the hydrolysis products of chitin and chitin oligosaccharides by
252
ChiEn1. As shown in Fig. 3 and Table 4, although ChiEn1 itself did not release any chitin
253
oligosaccharides from chitin powder after 4 h of reaction, the addition of ChiEn1 increased the amount
254
of (GlcNAc)2 released from the chitin powder by 149.5% but decreased the amount of GlcNAc by
255
10.3%, compared with products released by ChiIII alone. It is noteworthy that the amount of GlcNAc
256
accounted for 40.5% of the products (GlcNAc and (GlcNAc)2) of the reaction of chitin powder with
257
ChiIII alone, whereas it only accounted for 19.9% of the products of the reaction of chitin powder with
258
the combination of ChiIII and ChiEn1. Fig. 4A shows that in a 15 min incubation of ChiEn1,
259
(GlcNAc)2 was not degraded, whereas (GlcNAc)3 was degraded to GlcNAc and (GlcNAc)2, and the
260
amount of GlcNAc only accounted for 30.7% of the products (GlcNAc and (GlcNAc)2). As seen in Fig.
261
4A, (GlcNAc)4 was hydrolyzed by ChiEn1 to 2×(GlcNAc)2 or (GlcNAc)3 without GlcNAc.
262
Interestingly, the minor transglycosylation products (GlcNAc)6 and (GlcNAc)5 were observed in the
263
reaction mixture of (GlcNAc)4 with ChiEn1; therefore, the (GlcNAc)3 was produced from the
264
(GlcNAc)6 or (GlcNAc)5. The time course of the hydrolysis of the (GlcNAc)4 by the ChiEn1 (Fig 4B)
265
showed that with the prolongation of the reaction time, after (GlcNAc)4 was completely degraded,
266
(GlcNAc)3 was gradually degraded to (GlcNAc)2 and GlcNAc rather than only (GlcNAc)2 and the
267
amount of GlcNAc accounted for 20.1% of the final products (GlcNAc and (GlcNAc)2). Fig. 4A shows
268
that the (GlcNAc)5 was degraded by ChiEn1 to (GlcNAc)3 and (GlcNAc)2; it also was degraded to
269
(GlcNAc)4 but not GlcNAc. Correspondingly, two minor transglycosylation products, (GlcNAc)7 and
270
(GlcNAc)6, also appeared in the reaction mixture. Therefore, the (GlcNAc)4 was produced from the 10
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(GlcNAc)6 or (GlcNAc)7. The time course of the hydrolysis of (GlcNAc)5 by ChiEn1 (Fig. 4C) showed
272
that with the prolongation of the reaction time, after (GlcNAc)5 was completely degraded, the
273
intermediates (GlcNAc)4 and (GlcNAc)3 were further degraded and the final products were only
274
(GlcNAc)2 and GlcNAc; the amount of GlcNAc accounted for 21.7% of the final products at the end of
275
720-min reaction. From Fig. 4A, the hydrolysis products of (GlcNAc)6 by ChiEn1 included (GlcNAc)5,
276
(GlcNAc)4, (GlcNAc)3, and (GlcNAc)2, as well as minor amounts of transglycosylation products
277
(GlcNAc)7 and (GlcNAc)8, but not GlcNAc. Apparently, (GlcNAc)6 was degraded to 2×(GlcNAc)3 or
278
(GlcNAc)2 and (GlcNAc)4, but it was not cleaved directly to (GlcNAc)5 and GlcNAc; (GlcNAc)5 was
279
produced from transglycosylation product (GlcNAc)8 or (GlcNAc)7. The time course of the hydrolysis
280
of (GlcNAc)6 by ChiEn1 (Fig. 4D) showed that with the prolongation of reaction time, the
281
intermediates (GlcNAc)5 and (GlcNAc)4 gradually degraded, as described above, to (GlcNAc)3 and
282
(GlcNAc)2, whereas (GlcNAc)3 also finally degraded to (GlcNAc)2 and GlcNAc. At the end of the
283
reaction, the amount of GlcNAc accounted for 23.8% of the total final products (GlcNAc +
284
(GlcNAc)2).
285
The hydrolytic products of the pNP derivatives of the chitin oligosaccharides by ChiEn1 were
286
analyzed to determine the direction of the reaction and the mode of action. ChiEn1 did not cleave
287
GlcNAc-pNP to release GlcNAc (Fig. 5A). ChiEn1 degraded (GlcNAc)2-pNP to (GlcNAc)2 and pNP
288
(here, pNP was not detected by HPAEC-PAD); however, the hydrolysis products contained (GlcNAc)3
289
and GlcNAc-pNP (Fig. 5B), which supports a transglycosylation mechanism, i.e., ChiEn1 transfers one
290
(GlcNAc)2 residue from a (GlcNAc)2-pNP to another (GlcNAc)2-pNP to produce (GlcNAc)4-pNP and
291
pNP, and the resulting (GlcNAc)4-pNP was subsequently cleaved to a (GlcNAc)3 and GlcNAc-pNP.
292
ChiEn1 not only degraded (GlcNAc)3-pNP to produce (GlcNAc)3 and pNP but also produced
293
(GlcNAc)2 and GlcNAc-pNP (Fig. 5C). Furthermore, an apparent peak of (GlcNAc)2-pNP occurred in
294
the HPAEC-PAD pattern, but a peak of GlcNAc did not appear (Fig. 5C), suggesting that ChiEn1
295
transferred one (GlcNAc)2 from a (GlcNAc)3-pNP to another (GlcNAc)3-pNP to produce
296
(GlcNAc)5-pNP and GlcNAc-pNP; after this reaction, (GlcNAc)5-pNP was cleaved to form (GlcNAc)3
297
and (GlcNAc)2-pNP.
298
There are α- and β-anomeric forms of chitin oligosaccharides. The mutarotation of α- and
299
β-anomers spontaneously occurs in solution in a non-enzymatic way to finally reach the equilibrium
300
between two anomers.
39
After mutarotation, the ratio between the α- and β-anomeric forms of chitin 11
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oligosaccharides is approximately 60:40 at equilibrium. When the reaction was conducted at 0 ˚C on
302
ice, the mutarotation of the α- and β-anomeric forms of the hydrolysis products of chitin
303
oligosaccharides by chitinases was prohibited such that anomeric forms of the newly formed reducing
304
ends and those originating from the preexisting reducing end of substrates could be discriminated by
305
TSKgel Amide 80 column HPLC analysis.
306
GlcNAc in the ChiEn1 hydrolysis products of (GlcNAc)3 contained 84% and 82% β-anomer,
307
respectively, and the remaining (GlcNAc)3 exhibited a lower proportion (28%) of β-anomer than the
308
initial proportion (approximately 40%) of β-anomer that was present in the reaction before incubation,
309
suggesting that the β-anomer of (GlcNAc)3 was preferably degraded. Notably, the Amide 80 column
310
HPLC also detected less GlcNAc than (GlcNAc)2 in the hydrolysis products of (GlcNAc)3. In the
311
ChiEn1 hydrolysis products of (GlcNAc)4 (Table 5, Fig. 6B), (GlcNAc)2 contained 92% β-anomer, and
312
the proportion of β-anomer in the remaining (GlcNAc)4 was reduced to 20% from approximately 40%,
313
suggesting that the β-anomer of (GlcNAc)4 was preferably degraded to 2×β-(GlcNAc)2 by ChiEn1;
314
(GlcNAc)3 contained 53% β-anomer, which is consistent with the predicted combinations of
315
approximately 70% of the β-anomer of 2×(GlcNAc)3 resulting from (GlcNAc)6 and 40% of the
316
β-anomer of (GlcNAc)3 resulting from (GlcNAc)5 (see below). In the ChiEn1 hydrolysis products of
317
(GlcNAc)5 (Table 5, Fig. 6C), (GlcNAc)2 and (GlcNAc)3 contained 92% and 46% β-anomers,
318
respectively, indicating that β-(GlcNAc)2 was released only from the non-reducing end of (GlcNAc)5
319
and that the degradation of α- or β-(GlcNAc)5 by ChiEn1 was not selective; the transglycosylation
320
products (GlcNAc)6 and (GlcNAc)7 contained approximately 40% β-anomer, indicating that ChiEn1
321
transferred a (GlcNAc)2 residue from the non-reducing end of a (GlcNAc)5 to the non-reducing end of
322
another (GlcNAc)5 or intermediate (GlcNAc)4 to form a transglycosylation product; (GlcNAc)4 from
323
the transglycosylation product (GlcNAc)7 contained 66% β-anomer, suggesting that ChiEn1 cleaves
324
either (GlcNAc)3 or (GlcNAc)4 from the non-reducing end of (GlcNAc)7. In the ChiEn1 hydrolysis
325
products of (GlcNAc)6 (Table 5, Fig. 6D), (GlcNAc)2 and (GlcNAc)4 contained 96% β-anomer and
326
43% β-anomer, respectively, indicating that ChiEn1 cleaved the (GlcNAc)2 residue from the
327
non-reducing end of (GlcNAc)6 in a non-anomer selective manner; (GlcNAc)3 contained 63%
328
β-anomer, suggesting that ChiEn1 could symmetrically cleave (GlcNAc)6; the transglycosylation
329
products (GlcNAc)7 and (GlcNAc)8 contained approximately 40% β-anomer, also supporting the
330
hypothesis that ChiEn1 transferred a (GlcNAc)2 residue from the non-reducing end of a (GlcNAc)6 to
39,40
As shown in Table 5 and Fig. 6A, (GlcNAc)2 and
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the non-reducing end of another (GlcNAc)6 or intermediate (GlcNAc)5 to form a transglycosylation
332
product; (GlcNAc)5 contained approximately 46% β-anomer, indicating that ChiEn1 primarily cleaves
333
(GlcNAc)3 from the non-reducing end of the transglycosylation product (GlcNAc)8.
334 335
Analysis of the Sequence and Structure of ChiEn1
336
The analysis of NCBI conserved domains shows that ChiEn1 has only a catalytic domain but no
337
carbohydrate-binding domain (CBD). Thus, a phylogenetic tree of ChiEn1 and three reported
338
single-catalytic domain chitinases, ChiCH from Bacillus cereus,41 Chi18aD from Streptomyces
339
coelicolorA3(2),42 and SpChiD from Serratia proteamaculans,43 as well as two confirmed chitinases
340
(ChiIII and ChiB1) from C. cinerea and three typical chitinases (ChiA, ChiB, ChiC) from Serratia
341
marcescens was produced with the MEGA program by the neighbor-joining method, which indicates
342
that C. cinerea ChiEn1 and S. proteamaculans SpChiD are categorized in a subgroup (Fig. 7A). The
343
alignment of these chitinase catalytic domain sequences shows that ChiEn1 has 23.45% identity to
344
SpChiD from S. proteamaculans which is higher than its identities to other analyzed chitinases.
345
The protein structure of ChiEn1 was predicted using I-TASSER (Iterative Threading ASSEmbly
346
Refinement, http://zhanglab.ccmb.med.umich.edu/ I-TASSER/) based on the amino acid sequence of
347
ChiEn1; this prediction shows that ChiEn1 adopts the TIM (α/β)8 barrel fold with an active site
348
containing three catalytic acidic residues, Asp172, Asp174 and Glu176 (Fig. 7B1, B2). Like the typical
349
exo-acting enzyme ChiA (Fig. 7B3) and ChiB (Fig. 7B4) from S. marcescens,
350
domain insertion between strand 7 and helix 7 of the TIM barrel in the catalytic domain; therefore, it
351
exhibits a deeper substrate-binding cleft than the endo-acting enzyme ChiC2 from S. marcescens (Fig.
352
7B5).
353
exo-acting enzymes ChiA and ChiB from S. marcescens, similar to that of a single-domain chitinase,
354
SpChiD from S. proteamaculans (Fig. 7B6).43 Furthermore, there are fewer aromatic amino acids that
355
directly contact the substrate that is exposed on the surface of the substrate-binding cleft of ChiEn1
356
than there are in exo-acting chitinase ChiA and ChiB from S. marcescens (Fig. 7B3, B4), but there are
357
more than are found in the endo-acting chitinases ChiC2 from S. marcescens (Fig. 7B5) and SpChiD
358
from S. proteamaculans (Fig. 7B6). Among these aromatic amino acids W-255 and W-252 in the +3
359
and +5 positions of the subsite of ChiEn1 come from the α + β insertion domain that does not exist in
360
ChiC2 (comparing Fig. 7B2 to 7B5), similar to the W-290 in the positive subsite of SpChiD
44
44
ChiEn1 has an α+β
However, the substrate-binding cleft of ChiEn1 is more shallow and open than those of
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(comparing 7B6), and Phe94 and Trp424 are at -3 to -1 position of ChiEn1. A distinct feature of the
362
structure is that two small protruding loops, a Ser71-His77 loop between the B1 β-strand and A1
363
α-helix and a Gln181-His187 loop between the B4 β-strand and A4 α-helix, are situated in the
364
entrances of the two sides of the substrate-binding cleft of ChiEn1. Furthermore, though a small
365
peptide fragment consisting of the N-terminal Ala1-Thr16 residues extends beyond the globular
366
structure of ChiEn1, it is not collinear with the substrate-binding cleft and does not expose any
367
aromatic amino acids on the surface; therefore, it is not a binding domain.
368 369
Insoluble chitin binding of ChiEn1
370
As shown in Table 6, after 1 h of incubation, almost all of ChiEn1 proteins were bound to the insoluble
371
chitin substrates, chitin powder and colloidal chitin, at low protein concentration, while only a part of
372
ChiEn1 proteins were bound to the insoluble chitin substrates at the high concentration due to high
373
concentration of ChiEn1 exceeding chitinase binding capacity of chitin substrate though ChiEn1 lacks
374
carbohydrate-binding domain and does not hydrolyze chitin powder and colloidal chitin. Interestingly,
375
the binding affinity of ChiEn1 for powder chitin is higher than that for colloidal chitin.
376 377
Discussion
378
This study shows that ChiEn1 can only hydrolyze soluble chitin or chitin oligomeric substrates but not
379
insoluble chitin polymeric substrates, despite being annotated previously as an endochitinase. In
380
contrast, known chitinases, either endochitinases or exochitinases, essentially could act on the insoluble
381
chitin polymers.
382
processive action or non-processive action) on chitin polymers 44,50 were not determined in this study. A
383
distinctive feature is that the hydrolysis pattern of ChiEn1 shifted with the length of the chitin
384
oligosaccharides: when the substrate was (GlcNAc)3-5, ChiEn1 released (GlcNAc)2 residues from the
385
non-reducing end of (GlcNAc)3-5; when the substrate was (GlcNAc)6, ChiEn1 cleaved (GlcNAc)6 to
386
2×(GlcNAc)3 except cleaved (GlcNAc)2 residues from the non-reducing end of (GlcNAc)6; when the
387
substrate was (GlcNAc)7, ChiEn1 could randomly cleave (GlcNAc)3 or (GlcNAc)4 residues from the
388
non-reducing end of (GlcNAc)7; when the substrate was (GlcNAc)8, ChiEn1 only cleaved (GlcNAc)3
389
from the non-reducing end of (GlcNAc)8. We propose that the GlcNAc moieties at the non-reducing
390
end of (GlcNAc)3-5 are bound preferentially to the -2 and -1 subsites in the substrate-binding site of
45-49
Thus, the modes of action of ChiEn1 (the endo-action or exo-action and the
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ChiEn1; the GlcNAc moiety at the non-reducing end of (GlcNAc)6 is bound to the -3, -2 and -1
392
subsites or the -2 and -1 subsites in the substrate-binding site of ChiEn1; the GlcNAc moiety in the
393
non-reducing end of (GlcNAc)7 is bound randomly to the -3, -2, and -1 subsites, or the -4, -3, -2, and -1
394
subsites; the extending GlcNAc moiety at the non-reducing end of (GlcNAc)8 beyond the -4, -3, -2, and
395
-1 subsites in the substrate-binding site of ChiEn1 is unstable, so it preferentially bound to the -3, -2,
396
and -1 subsites (Fig. 8).
397
This study shows that ChiEn1 possesses a transglycosylation activity, transferring a cleaved
398
(GlcNAc)2 residue from the non-reducing end of one chitin oligosaccharide (GlcNAc)n (n=3–6) to
399
another (GlcNAc)n or intermediate (GlcNAc)n-1 to form (GlcNAc)n+2 and (GlcNAc)(n-1)+2. Although no
400
other product of transglycosylation except for the degraded products GlcNAc and (GlcNAc)2 was
401
observed in the reaction of (GlcNAc)3 with ChiEn1, the amount of generated monomer only accounted
402
for 30.7% rather than approximately 50% of the products (GlcNAc and (GlcNAc)2). This result
403
indicates that one part of the cleaved dimers was released as products and the other part of the cleaved
404
dimers was transferred to (GlcNAc)3 to form (GlcNAc)5; the resulting (GlcNAc)5 was cleaved much
405
faster than the (GlcNAc)3 and will likely never be observed. Since the amount of GlcNAc in the
406
reaction mixture of (GlcNAc)5 with ChiEn1 accounts for 21.69% of the total final products (GlcNAc +
407
(GlcNAc)2), the calculated theoretical value of the percentage of the monomer in the total final
408
products (GlcNAc + (GlcNAc)2) in the reaction of trimers with ChiEn1 should be approximately 35%,
409
which is close to the experimentally measured amount of monomer generated from the trimer in this
410
study. The fact that the ChiEn1 hydrolysis products of (GlcNAc)2-pNP contained (GlcNAc)3 and
411
GlcNAc-pNP also suggests that ChiEn1 transfers one (GlcNAc)2 residue from the (GlcNAc)3 analog
412
(GlcNAc)2-pNP to another (GlcNAc)2-pNP to produce (GlcNAc)4-pNP and pNP, and the resulting
413
(GlcNAc)4-pNP is subsequently cleaved to (GlcNAc)3 and GlcNAc-pNP. Thus, this study explores that
414
by the synergy of its random hydrolysis and transglycosylation activities, ChiEn1 can convert chitin
415
oligosaccharides into trimers that are further degraded to dimers and monomers, even though in the
416
reaction mixture of (GlcNAc)4 with ChiEn1, the amount of GlcNAc accounted for 20.05% of the total
417
final products.
418
This study explores that although ChiEn1 did not act on insoluble chitin polymers, ChiEn1 acted
419
synergistically with another endochitinase, ChiIII, from C. cinerea 21 to efficiently hydrolyze insoluble
420
chitin polymers. We previously reported that the C. cinerea endochitinase ChiIII could randomly bind 15
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421
to any site on the chitin chain in an endo-action mode and degrade chitin chains to various lengths of
422
chitin oligosaccharides. After each cleavage, ChiIII may disassociate from the cleavage site of the
423
substrate and bind to another site on the remaining chitin chain, to a new chitin chain, or to the chitin
424
oligosaccharide to continue hydrolysis. When the substrate has a polymerization degree of five or
425
fewer of oligosaccharides, ChiIII cleaves monomers rather than dimers from the chitin oligosaccharides
426
in a processive, exo-action mode until it obtains a dimer. However, the specific activities of ChiIII
427
towards chitintriose and chitintetraose are, 0.02 U mg-1 and 0.09 U mg-1,
428
much lower than those of ChiEn1 (0.99 U mg-1 and 3.48 U mg-1, respectively). Thus, ChiEn1 may
429
compensate for the deficiency of ChiIII in its capability to degrade chitintriose and chitintetraose to
430
enhance the hydrolysis of ChiIII towards chitin polymers. Consistent with this point, the addition of
431
ChiEn1 only increased the amount of (GlcNAc)2 released from chitin powder by 149.5% compared
432
with the control (ChiIII alone), whereas it decreased the amount of GlcNAc by 10.3%, which only
433
accounted for approximately 20% of products; this value is closer to the percentage (approximately
434
20–23%) in the products that was released from chitin oligosaccharides by ChiEn1 alone than to the
435
percentage (approximately 40%) in the products released from chitin powders by ChiIII alone. This
436
indicates that the further degradation of the oligosaccharides released from the chitin polymers in the
437
combined reaction mixture by ChiIII was mainly conducted by ChiEn1. As to the fact that the amount
438
of reducing sugars released from 85% deacetylated chitosan by the combination of ChiEn1 and ChiIII
439
was 26.4% lower than the sum of the amount of reducing sugars released by ChiIII or ChiEn1 alone, it
440
may be resulted from partially acetylated chito-oligosaccharides (CHOS) released from chitosan which
441
may bind nonproductively and serve as an inhibitor because its preferred binding mode places a
442
deacetylated unit in subsite −1.
443
ChiA
444
degradation of insoluble chitin substrates have been reported and were attributed to their different and
445
complementary activities (endo- vs. exo- for ChiA and ChiC) and directionalities (reducing- vs.
446
non-reducing for ChiA and ChiB).
447
chitinases also applies to hydrolysis products of one chitinase being used as substrates for another
448
chitinase. Since being similar to ChiIII, the expression level of ChiEn1 in the pileus increased with the
449
maturation of the fruiting body, the synergistic action of ChiEn1 and ChiIII is involved in the efficient
450
degradation of chitin in cell walls during pileus autolysis of the fruiting body of C. cinerea.
49
51
21
respectively, which are
The synergistic actions of endochitinase ChiC and exochitinases
or exochitinase ChiA and exochitinase ChiB
46
47,49
from bacterium S. marcescens on the
Our results first indicate that the synergistic action of two
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451
This study shows that ChiEn1 has only a catalytic domain and no carbohydrate-binding domain
452
(CBD). It is usually suggested that the presence of a carbohydrate-binding domain in chitinases enables
453
them to bind more tightly to substrates and enhances the processivity of chitinases. 7,45 Tjoelker et al.52
454
even reported that the human chitinase, chitotriosidase, contains a chitin-binding domain. Deleting this
455
domain has no effect on enzyme activity toward soluble chitin oligosaccharides, but activity is lost
456
against insoluble chitin polymers. It seems that the lack of degradation of the insoluble chitin may be
457
due to the lack of a chitin-binding domain of ChiEn1. However, known single-domain bacterial
458
chitinases that lack the chitin-binding domain, such as the exochitinase ChiCH from B. cereus,
459
chitinase Chi18aD from S. coelicolorA3(2),
460
43
461
domain in ChiEn1 does not explain the cause of the loss of activity against the insoluble chitin
462
polymers. The analysis of the molecular structure of SpChiD from S. proteamaculans indicates that
463
chitinases lacking the carbohydrate-binding domain often bind to substrates by the exposed aromatic
464
residues on the surface of substrate-binding cleft. 53,54 This study also shows that more aromatic amino
465
acids were exposed on the surface of the substrate-binding cleft of ChiEn1 than that of ChiC (which
466
has a carbohydrate-binding domain), but it is similar to the SpChiD from S. proteamaculans, which
467
could efficiently hydrolyze various insoluble chitin and soluble chitin.
468
chitin binding capacity of ChiEn1 has been proved in this study too. Therefore, we presume that the
469
reason that ChiEn1 could hydrolyze soluble chitin or chitin oligomeric substrates but not insoluble
470
chitin polymeric substrates may be due to the steric hindrance of two specific small loops situated in
471
the two sides of the binding site cleft, which is different than the case of SpChiD.
472
chitin could be bound to the aromatic residues-containing surface of substrate-binding cleft, the two
473
small protruding loops may impede the access of insoluble crystalline chitin chains to the active site of
474
the putative catalytic center of ChiEn1, in which case ChiEn1 could not act on an insoluble chitin
475
substrate. In contrast, the soluble chitin derivatives such as glycol chitin and 85% deacetylated chitosan
476
may have some flexibility of molecular structure so that they can overcome the steric hindrance to
477
correctly position in the active site in the cleft as substrates. Furthermore, the aromatic residues W255
478
and W252, located at the +2 and +3 subsites of the substrate-binding cleft may correspond to the
479
transglycosylation activity of ChiEn1 because the aromatic residues at the binding sites of sugar
480
acceptors have been demonstrated to be important to transglycosylation activity.31,55,56 The introduction
42
41
the
and the endochitinase SpChiD from S. proteamaculans,
can hydrolyze insoluble chitin powder and/or colloidal chitin. Apparently, the lack of a chitin-binding
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Furthermore, the insoluble
53
Though insoluble
Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
481
of a Trp at position +2 in the binding cleft of ChiA caused the enzyme to develop apparent
482
transglycosylation activity.
483
chitinases are W-W, while they are F94-W424 in ChiEn1. The W to F exchange in ChiEn1 allows for a
484
decrease in the aromatic surface area where the GlcNAc moieties at the non-reducing end of chitin
485
oligosaccharides can interact; thus, for the transglycosylation activity of ChiEn1, it can be predicted
486
that (GlcNAc)2 binds more tightly to the substrate-binding site than (GlcNAc)3 does. 31,57 Furthermore,
487
the catalytic domain of ChiEn1 contains an α + β insertion domain. Usually, a chitinase with an α+β
488
insertion domain in the catalytic domain is considered to be an exochitinase because the α+β insertion
489
domain leads to a deep substrate-binding cleft
490
proteamaculans, containing the so-called α/β insertion domain in the catalytic domain, shows a deeper
491
but more open catalytic cleft and was suggested to function as an endochitinase rather than an
492
exochitinase. 54 We found that although the substrate binding cleft of ChiEn1 is deeper than that of the
493
endo-acting enzyme ChiC2 from S. marcescens,
494
exo-acting enzymes ChiA and ChiB from S. marcescens,
495
hydrolytic patterns on different lengths of chitin oligosaccharides (although it does not act on the chitin
496
polymers). Certainly, the remarkable structural features and structure-function relationships of ChiEn1
497
explored by structure modeling above need to be supported further by a high-resolution
498
crystallographic analysis in the future.
31
Usually, the amino acids at the -3 to -1 sugar-donating subsites of
44
. However, the bacterial chitinase SpChiD from S.
44
it is more shallow and open than those of the 44
which may be related to its random
499 500
Acknowledgments
501
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31570046), the
502
Priority Academic Development Program of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions and the Scientific
503
Innovation.
504 505
Supporting Information
506
The Supporting Information is available :Fig S1. MALDI-TOF MS spectra of the reaction mixture of
507
(GlcNAc)5 (A) and (GlcNAc)6 (B) incubated with ChiEn1 for 5 min as described in Fig 4C, D.
508 509 510 18
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frequency and hyphal growth. Biosci., Biotechnol., Biochem. 1998, 62, 60-65.
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Coprinellus congregatus. J. Microbiol. 2009, 47, 225-228.
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(6) Li, D. Review of Fungal Chitinases. Mycopathologia 2006, 161, 345-360.
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(7) Seidl, V., Chitinases of filamentous fungi: a large group of diverse proteins with multiple
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physiological functions. Fungal Biol. Rev. 2008, 22, 36-42.
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(8) Tzelepis, G. D.; Melin, P.; Stenlid, J.; Dan, F. J.; Karlsson, M., Functional analysis of the C-II
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enzymatic properties and synergism on chitin degradation. Biosci., Biotechnol., Biochem. 2002, 66,
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Glycoconjugate J. 2009, 26, 525-534.
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chitinase A enhances transglycosylation. Biosci., Biotechnol., Biochem. 2006, 70, 243-251.
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Figure legends
662
Figure 1A. The transcript levels of chitinase ChiEn1 gene in the pileus with different open angles.
663
β-tubulin was used to standardize the mRNA levels. All data were obtained using at least three
664
independent experiments with three replicates. B. SDS-PAGE analysis of the recombinant chitinase
665
ChiEn1. Lanes: M, standard protein molecular weight markers; 1, culture medium of control stain; 2,
666
culture medium of recombinant expression strain; 3, purified recombinant ChiEn1. C. The partial
667
amino acid sequences (shadowed in grey) of the partial peptide fragments from the recombinant
668
ChiEn1 with trypsin determined using MALDI-TOF/TOF MS analysis were consistent with that in the
669
entire amino acid sequence that was predicted from the gene sequence of a putative ChiEn1 annotated
670
in the C. cinerea genome (locus/protein identifier accession EAU81461 in GenBank): 1, the sequence
671
of the trypsinized peptide fragments 1 with Mascot ion score of 64 and m/z of 2675.1425; 2, the
672
sequence of the trypsinized peptide fragments 2 with Mascot ion score of 65 and m/z of 2332.0039. D.
673
The spectra of MALDI TOF/TOF MS of the trypsinized peptide fragments 1 (D1) and peptide
674
fragments 2 (D2) in ChiEn1 protein sequence in C.
675 676
Figure 2A. Temperature effect (1) and thermostability (2) of ChiEn1 activity towards glycol chitin at
677
pH 5.0. B. The pH effect and pH stability of ChiEn1 activity towards glycol chitin at 37 °C. C. Effect
678
of (GlcNAc)2-pNP(1) and (GlcNAc)3-pNP (2) concentration on ChiEn1 activity.
679 680
Figure 3. The HPAEC-PAD analysis of the products released from chitin powder by ChiEn1, ChiIII,
681
ChiEn1+ChiIII, or heat-inactivated ChiEn1+ChiIII. The chitin oligosaccharides (GlcNAc)1-6 were used
682
as standards.
683 684
Figure 4. The HPAEC-PAD analysis of the products released from chitin oligosaccharides by ChiEn1.
685
(A) 100 nM (GlcNAc)2-3 was incubated with 0.89 µM ChiEn1 or 100 nM (GlcNAc)4-6 was incubated
686
with 0.45 µM ChiEn1 for 15 min. (B) 100 nM (GlcNAc)4, (C) (GlcNAc)5, or (D) (GlcNAc)6 was
687
incubated with 0.56 µM ChiEn1 for different times. The chitin oligosaccharides (GlcNAc)1-6 were used
688
as standards. (GlcNAc)7 and (GlcNAc)8 in the reaction mixture were identified by their mass-to-charge
689
(m/z) of molecular ions in MALDI-TOF MS spectra (Supporting materials Fig S1).
690 24
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Figure 5. The HPAEC-PAD analysis of the products released from (A) GlcNAc–pNP, (B)
692
(GlcNAc)2–pNP, or (C)(GlcNAc)3–pNP by ChiEn1. The identities of the peaks was determined using a
693
comparison to the standards (D) (GlcNAc)1–3–pNP and (E) (GlcNAc)1–6. pG1, pG2, and pG3 represent
694
GlcNAc–pNP, (GlcNAc)2–pNP, and (GlcNAc)3–pNP, respectively, and dp2, dp3, dp4, dp5, and dp6
695
represent (GlcNAc)2, (GlcNAc)3, (GlcNAc)4, (GlcNAc)5, and (GlcNAc)6, respectively.
696 697
Figure 6. The TSKgel Amide-80 HPLC analysis of the anomeric configurations of products released
698
from the chitin oligosaccharides by ChiEn1. (A) 100 nmol of (GlcNAc)3, (B) (GlcNAc)4, (C)
699
(GlcNAc)5, and (D) (GlcNAc)6 were reacted with 0.80 µM U of ChiEn1 in 50 µL of 50 mM
700
NaAc-HAc (pH 5.0) on ice for 5 min. The identity of the peaks of the α- and β-anomers of the chitin
701
oligosaccharides was determined by a comparison to (GlcNAc)1–6 standards (OligoTech GLU432-436)
702
(E).
703 704
Figure 7. A. The phylogenetic relationship of chitinase ChiEn1, ChiB1 and ChiIII from C. cinerea,
705
ChiA, ChiB and ChiC from S. marcesens, and three single-catalytic domain chitinases, SpChiD from S.
706
proteamaculans, ChiCH from Bacillus cereus, and Chi18aD from Streptomyces coelicolorA3. Analysis
707
was conducted using neighbour-joining with JTT substitution model and complete deletion of missing
708
data, based on CLUSTAL W alignment of catalytic domain amino acid sequences of these chitinases.
709
Branch support is indicated by bootstrap values. The scale bar corresponds to 0.2 amino acid
710
substitutions per site. Each sequences are marked with its locus/protein identifier, name and organism
711
source as found in GenBank. B. The predicted structure of ChiEn1 (B1), which shows a TIM (α/β)8
712
barrel fold consisting of eight α-helices (indicated by a blue arrow) and eight parallel β-strands
713
(indicated by a red arrow), an α+β insertion domain (indicated by a yellow arrow), two small
714
protruding loops (indicated by grey arrows) situated in the entrances of the two sides of the
715
substrate-binding cleft. The predicted substrate-binding clefts of ChiEn1 (B2) from C. cinerea, ChiA
716
(B3), ChiB (B4), and ChiC2 (B5) from S. marcesens, and SpChiD (B6) from S. proteamaculans, which
717
show the DXDXE catalytic motif and the aromatic amino acids that interact with the substrate.
718 719
Figure 8. A diagram showing the predicted products from different binding modes of chitin
720
oligosaccharides (GlcNAc)3-8 in the substrate-binding cleft of the chitinase ChiEn1. ChiEn1 has at least 25
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seven subsites (numbered -4 to +2) in which the non-reducing end of the chitin oligosaccharides binds
722
to the negatively labeled subsites, the reducing end binds to positively labeled subsites, and the
723
glycosidic bond between the sugar residues at subsites -1 and +1 is enzymatically cleaved (indicated by
724
an arrow). The original reducing end of chitin oligosaccharides (partially shaded) is an equilibrium
725
mixture of α/β-anomers, and the newly formed reducing end of the glycosyl fragments retains the
726
β-anomeric configuration. The β-anomer of the reducing end of (GlcNAc)3-4 (fully shaded) preferably
727
bound to the +1 and +2 subsites of the substrate-binding cleft, whereas the reducing end of (GlcNAc)5-8
728
(partially shaded) extended beyond the +2 subsite so that the preference for the β-anomer disappeared.
729
The non-reducing end of (GlcNAc)3-5 preferably bound to the -2 subsite of the substrate-binding cleft,
730
whereas the non-reducing end of (GlcNAc)6-8 extended beyond the -2 subsite to bind to the -3, or even
731
-4, subsite.
732 733
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Table 1. Chitinase ChiEn1 activity towards various substrates Substrate
Specific activity
polysaccharide
U/mg ×10-3
Colloidal chitin (made in the laboratory
0±0.3
by Sandhya et al. 24) Chitin powder (Sigma C7170)
0±0.2
Glycol chitin (made in the laboratory
50.7±0.2
by Li et al.25) 85% Deacetylated chitosan (Sigma C3646)
44.6±0.3
CMC-Na (Sigma C5013)
0±0.2
Glycol chitosan (Sigma G7753)
0±0.6
Laminarin (Sigma 9634 )
0±0.6
oligosaccharides
U/mg
Chitinbiose (OligoTech GLU432)
0
Chitintriose (OligoTech GLU433)
0.99±0.03
Chitintetraose (OligoTech GLU434)
3.48±0.01
Chitinpentose (OligoTech GLU435)
3.58±0.11
Chitinhexaose (OligoTech GLU436)
4.90±0.04
Chitohexaose (ZB-10010)
0
(GlcNAc)1-3-pNP
U/mg
4-Nitrophenyl N-acetyl-β-D-glucosaminide (Sigma, N9376) (GlcNAc-pNP) 4-Nitrophenyl N,N’-diacetyl-β-D-chitobioside
(Sigma,
N6133) ((GlcNAc)2-pNP) 4-Nitrophenyl-β-D-N,N’,N’’-triacetylchitotriose
0 2.39±0.05 1.01±0.05
(Sigma, N8638) ((GlcNAc)3-pNP)
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Table 2. Effect of Chitinase ChiEn1 on hydrolysis of chitinous polysaccharides by ChiIII
Chitinase in reaction
Reducing sugar released from chitinous polysaccharides (µmol/mL) 85% Deacetylated
Chitin powder
Colloidal chitin
Glycol chitin
ChiIII
0.582±0.007
2.805±0.057
0.645±0.006
0.662±0.009
ChiEn1
0±0.001
0±0.006
0.986±0.009
0.790±0.005
ChiIII+ChiEn1
1.194±0.013
3.395±0.009
2.142±0.028
1.068±0.011
105.0 %
21.0 %
31.3 %
- 26.4 %
Synergsim (%)*
chitosan
*increased or decreased amount (%) of reducing sugars released from chitin powder by combination of ChiEn1 and ChiIII compared to the summary of reducing surgars released respectively by ChiIII or ChiEn1 alone.
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Table 3. Effect of metal ions and ion chelator EDTA on chitinase ChiEn1activity Enzyme activity(U/mg ×10-3)
Relative activity (%)
161±0.3
100
474±7.7
295
273±1.3
170
44±0.3
27.3
1 mM Ni2+
202±1.4
126
2+
199±1.0
123
Reagent None 1 mM Mn
2+
1 mM Co2+ 1 mM Fe
3+
1 mM Ca
1 mM Mg2+ 1 mM Al
170±1.3
106
3+
15±0. 5
9.6
2+
170±1.0
106
46±1.3
28.5
1 mM Ba
1 mM Cu2+ 1 mM MoO42-
189±2.2
117
-
130±2.9
80.9
1 mM EDTA
128±0.7
79.7
2 mM EDTA
0
0
1 mM Cr2O7
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Table 4. The chitin oligosaccharides released from chitin powder by ChiEn1, or ChiIII, or ChiEn1+ChiIII, respectively. Released chitin oligosaccharides (µM/mL) Treatment GlcNAc
Chitinbiose
GlcNAc in products (%)
ChiIII
0.193±0.019
0.283±0.017
40.5 %
ChiEn1
0
0
0
ChiIII+ChiEn1
0.175±0.006
0.706±0.012
19.9 %
Synergism (%)*
-10.3%
149.5%
*increased or decreased amount (%) of GlcNAc or (GlcNAc)2 released from chitin powder by combination of ChiEn1 and ChiIII compared to the summary of GlcNAc or (GlcNAc)2 released respectively by ChiIII or ChiEn1 alone.
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Table 5. Percentage of β-anomer of the produts degraded by chitinase ChiEn1 from (GlcNAc)3-6 Products (% β-anomer) Substrates GlcNAc
(GlcNAc)2
(GlcNAc)3
82
84
28
(GlcNAc)4
92
53
20
(GlcNAc)5
92
46
(GlcNAc)6
96
63
(GlcNAc)3
(GlcNAc)4
(GlcNAc)5
(GlcNAc)6
(GlcNAc)7
66
35
43
38
43
46
36
38
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Table 6. Insoluble chitin binding capacity of ChiEn1 Total protein
Protein bound to chitin (% total protein)
(µg/mL)
Chitin powder
Colloidal chitin
20
100
100
40
100
83
60
83
50
80
62
37
100
50
30
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