Monday, May 4, 2009
5-35

Conversion of Thermobifida fusca free exoglucanases into cellulosomal components: Comparative impact on cellulose-degrading activity

Jonathan Caspi1, Diana C. Irwin2, Yongchao Li2, Raphael Lamed3, Henri-Pierre Fierobe4, David Wilson2, and Edward A. Bayer5. (1) Biochemistry, Genencor, a Danisco division, 925 Page Mill Road, Palo Alto, CA 94304, (2) Molecular Biology and Genetics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, (3) Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel, (4) Bioenergetique et Ingenierie des Proteines, CNRS, Marseille, France, (5) Biological Chemistry, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel

Cellulosomes are multi-enzyme complexes produced by certain anaerobic bacteria that exhibit efficient degradation of plant cell wall polysaccharides. To understand their enhanced levels of hydrolysis, we are investigating the effects of converting a free-cellulase system into a cellulosomal one. To achieve this end, we are replacing the cellulose-binding module of the native cellulases, produced by the aerobic bacterium Thermobifida fusca, with a cellulosome-derived dockerin module of established specificity, to allow their incorporation into defined “designer cellulosomes”. In this communication, we have attached divergent dockerins to the two exoglucanases produced by T. fusca exoglucanase, Cel6B and Cel48A. The resultant fusion proteins were shown to bind efficiently and specifically to their matching cohesins, and their activities on several different cellulose substrates were compared. The lack of a cellulose-binding module in Cel6B had a deleterious effect on its activity on crystalline substrates. In contrast, the dockerin-bearing family-48 exoglucanase showed increased levels of hydrolytic activity on carboxymethyl cellulose and on both crystalline substrates tested, compared to the wild-type enzyme. The marked difference in the response of the two exoglucanases to incorporation into a cellulosome, suggests that the family-48 cellulase is more appropriate than the family-6 enzyme as a designer cellulosome component.