Purification and some properties of Thermotoga neapolitana thermostable xylanase B expressed in E. coli cells.

A xylanase was purified from the recombinant strain E. coli TG1 carrying the pTT32 vector with a fragment of the Thermotoga neapolitana chromosomal DNA. The enzyme was purified 419-fold with 36% yield after heating at 70 degrees C and pH 4.5 and subsequent ion-exchange chromatography. By polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis in the presence of SDS, the molecular weight of the apparently homogeneous protein is 39 kD. By isoelectric focusing, the protein is of a single form with pI = 5.9. The optimal pH for hydrolysis is 5.5, and the optimal temperature is 90 degrees C. The xylanase is stable to heating at 70 degrees C for 4 h. The enzyme is inactivated by 50% at 80, 90, and 100 degrees C after 227, 162, and 30 min, respectively. Enzyme activity was tested using xylans and glucans as substrates. By thin-layer chromatography of the xylan hydrolysis products, the enzyme was classified as an endoxylanase.

[Construction and analysis of transgenic plants of Nicotiana tabacum L. expressing a bacterial gene for beta-1,3-glucanase. I. Construction of vector plasmids for transfer into plants and expression of a modified gene for beta-1,3-glucanase from Clostridium thermocellum in tobacco protoplasts]. / Konstruirovanie i analiz transgennykh rastenii Nicotiana tabacum L. s ékspressiruiushchimsia bakterial'nym genom beta-1,3-gliukanazy. I. Konstruirovanie vektorynykh plazmid dlia perenosa v rasteniia i ékspressiia modifitsirovannogo gena beta-1,3-gliukanazy iz Clostridium thermocellum v protoplastakh tabaka.

We constructed two vectors, pC27-glc and pC29-glc, that allow expression of the beta-1,3-glucanase gene (glc) in plant cells. The glc gene was previously cloned from anaerobic thermophilous bacterium Clostridium thermocellum. To increase the efficiency of expression, the N-terminal fragment of the glc gene encoding bacterial transient peptide was deleted, and hybrid variants of lacZ-glc were obtained. Analysis of expression of the hybrid genes in Escherichia coli showed that deletion of the fragment corresponding to 31 amino acids (a.a.) of beta-glucanase affected neither activity nor thermostability of the enzyme. The modified gene was subcloned into two vectors, pC27 and pC29, in which its expression was controlled by the TR2' promoter of the 2' gene of T-DNA and the rbcS promoter from Arabidopsis, respectively. Each of the resulting plasmids, pC27-glc and pC29-glc, was transfected into protoplasts of Nicotiana plumbaginifolia. Both the plasmids were shown to allow a high level of activity of the thermostable beta-1,3-glucanase. We plan to use the vectors obtained for transformation of agrobacteria and construction of transgenic plants.

[Construction and analysis of transgenic plants of Nicotiana tabacum L. expressing a bacterial gene for beta-1,3-glucanase. II. Transgenic tobacco plants expressing the bacterial beta-glucanase gene from Clostridium thermocellum,--a model for studying the differential expression of stress response-related genes]. / Konstruirovanie i analiz transgennykh rastenii Nicotiana tabacum L. s ékspressiruiushchimsia bakterial'nym genom beta-1,3-gliukanazy. II. Transgennye rasteniia tabaka, ékspressiruiushchie bakterial'nye gen beta-gliukanazy iz Clostridium thermocellum,--model' dlia izucheniia differentsial'noi ékspressii genov stressovogo otveta.

The modified hybrid beta-1,3-glucanase gene (glc) of Clostridium thermocellum was expressed in tobacco Nicotiana tabacum. The glc gene was cloned into two plasmids, pC27-glc and pC29-glc, in which its expression was controlled by the TR2' promoter of the 2' gene of T-DNA and the rbcS promoter of Arabidopsis, respectively. These constructions were used for transformation of agrobacteria followed by transfer into plants. In transformed plants, each plasmid caused a high level of activity of thermostable bacterial glucanase not observed in reference plants. The plants obtained were used to study activation of some defense-related genes induced by their interaction with either tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) or a pathogenic fungus.