title: Molecular cloning and nucleotide sequencing of the aspartate racemase gene from lactic acid bacteria Streptococcus thermophilus.
abstract: The gene coding aspartate racemase (EC 5.1.1.13) was cloned from the lactic acid bacteria Streptococcus thermophilus IAM10064 and expressed efficiently in Escherichia coli. The 2.1 kilobase pairs long full length clone had an open reading frame of 729 nucleotides coding for 243 amino acids. The calculated molecular weight of 27,945 agreed well with the apparent molecular weight of 28,000 found in sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of the aspartate racemase purified from S. thermophilus. The N-terminal amino acid sequence from the purified protein exactly matches the derived sequence. In addition, the amino acid composition compiled from the derived sequence is very similar to that obtained from the purified recombinant protein. No significantly homologous proteins were found in a protein sequence data bank. Even the homology scores with alanine racemases of Salmonella typhimurium and Bacillus stearothermophilus were low. Aspartate racemase was overproduced in Escherichia coli NM522 with plasmid pAG6-2-7, which was constructed from two copies of the gene linked with a tac promoter and plasmid vector pUC18. The amount of aspartate racemase increases with the growth of E. coli and almost no degradation of the enzyme was observed. The maximum amount of the produced enzyme reached approx. 20% of the total protein of E. coli.
authors.affiliation: Research Center, Asahi Glass Co. Ltd., Kanagawa, Japan.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Yohda
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Okada
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kumagai
mesh_terms: D000591:Amino Acid Isomerases / Q000235:genetics*; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001483:Base Sequence; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D004591:Electrophoresis, Polyacrylamide Gel; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000235:genetics; D015964:Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial; D005798:Genes, Bacterial; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010957:Plasmids; D015183:Restriction Mapping; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid; D013291:Streptococcus / Q000201:enzymology* / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D000591:Amino Acid Isomerases; C019749:aspartate racemase