Stabilization and Improvement of Catalytic Activity of a Low Molar Mass Cellobiase by Cellobiase-Sucrase Aggregation in the Culture Filtrate of Termitomyces clypeatus

The extracellular cellobiase (EC 3.2.1.21) of Termitomyces clypeatus separated in two protein fractions when culture filtrate or ammonium sulfate precipitated proteins were chromatographed on BioGel P-200 column. During purification of cellobiase (CBS) from the lower molar mass (LMM) protein fraction, the enzyme behaved like a low molecular weight multimeric protein. The purified enzyme gave a single 56 kDa band in SDS— PAGE but ladderlike bands (14, 28, 42, and 56 kDa) on denaturation by reducingSDS and urea. The protein, however, dissociated on dilution and protomeric (14 kDa) and multimeric forms (28 and 60 kDa) were eluted separately during HPGPLC. Specific activity of CBS gradually decreased as the molar mass of the enzyme was lowered in different eluted peaks. Protein present in all CBS pool fractions had the same amino acid composition and all displayed the same, single protein peak in reverse-phase HPLC and 56 kDa band in SDS-PAGE. Thus, T. clypeatus CBS was a multimeric 14 kDa protein that was optimally active as a tetramer. CBS purified from the higher molar mass fraction (HMM) as a SDS—PAGE homogeneous IIO-kDa protein did not dissociate on dilution or by SDS-urea. The purified protein was a protein aggregate as CBS consistently contained 20 ± 5% sucrase (SUC) Units in the preparation. The aggregate resolved during reverse-phase chromatography on a C4 column, and an additional protein peak other than CBS was detected. The aggregated CBS had a higher temperature optimum and was more stable toward thermal and chemical denaturations than SUC-free CBS. Increase of stability and catalytic activity of CBS by aggregation with SUC was much higher than those by the multimerization of CBS itself. All of these observations for the first time suggested that the heterologous protein—protein aggregation, observed for a long time for fungal enzymes, might have a significant role in modulating physicochemical properties of the extracellular enzyme.