Cellobiose 2-epimerase (CE) catalyzes the conversion of the lactose into its high-value derivatives, epilactose and lactulose, which has great prospects in food applications. In this study, CE sequences from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau gene catalogue, we screened these for structural flexibility through molecular dynamics simulation to identify potential psychrophilic CE candidates. One such psychrophilic CE we termed psyCE demonstrated exceptional epimerization activity, achieving an optimum activity of 122.2 ± 1.6 U/mg. Its kinetic parameters (K cat and K m ) for epimerization activity were 219.9 ± 5.6 s −1 and 261.9 ± 18.1 mM, respectively, representing the highest K cat recorded among known cold-active CEs. Notably, this is the first report of a psychrophilic CE. The psyCE can effectively produce epilactose at 8 °C, converting 20.3 % of 200 mM lactose into epilactose within four hours. These findings suggest that psyCE is highly suitable for cryogenic food processing, and glaciers may serve as a valuable repository of psychrophilic enzymes.
Sheng Hu,Xiang Zhang,Yi Lu,Yue-Cheng Lin,Dong-Fang Xie,Hui Fang,Jun Huang,Le-He Mei
An aspartate aminotransferase (AATase) gene from Lactobacillus brevis CGMCC 1306 was cloned, which contains a 1182-bp open reading frame coding for 393 amino acids (41.43 kDa). When expressed in Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3), the recombinant AATase was purified and subsequently characterized. The recombinant AATase can catalyse the conversion of L-Asp to L-Glu, and the kcat/Km was determined to be 25.5 (mmol/L)−1 s−1 for L-Asp and 207.8 m(mol/L)−1 s−1 for α-ketoglutarate. With optimum temperature as 25 ˚C, the AATase may be a novel and special psychrophilic enzyme which exhibited a good thermal stability below 55 ˚C. The conserved active site residue of AATase was identified as Lys237 by phylogenetic analysis. Secondary structure of the enzyme includes α-helix (39.2%), β-sheet (5.5%), β-turn (8.8%), and random coil (36.5%) by circular dichroism spectral analysis. Phase diagram for the fluorescence data analysis showed that guanidinium chloride-induced unfolding of AATase involved at least one intermediate.