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A common active site of polyhydroxyalkanoate synthase from Bacillus cereus YB-4 is involved in polymerization and alcoholysis reactions

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Abstract

Polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) synthase from Bacillus cereus YB-4 (PhaRCYB4) catalyzes not only PHA polymerization but also alcoholytic cleavage of PHA chains. The alcoholysis activity of PhaRCYB4 is expressed when a hydroxyacyl-CoA monomer is absent but an alcohol compound is present. In this study, we performed alanine mutagenesis of the putative catalytic triad (Cys151, Asp306, and His335) in the PhaCYB4 subunit to identify the active site residues for polymerization and alcoholysis activities. Individual substitution of each triad residue with alanine resulted in loss of both polymerization and alcoholysis activities, suggesting that these residues are commonly shared between polymerization and alcoholysis reactions. The loss of activity was also observed following mutagenesis of the triad to other amino acids, except for one PhaRCYB4 mutant with a C151S substitution, which lost polymerization activity but still possessed cleavage activity towards PHA chains. The low-molecular-weight PHA isolated from the PhaRCYB4(C151S)-expressing strain showed a lower ratio of alcohol capping at the P(3HB) carboxy terminus than did that from the wild-type-expressing strain. This observation implies that hydrolysis activity of PhaRCYB4 might be elicited by the C151S mutation.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. Y. Nakamura (Tokyo Institute of Technology) for NMR analysis. This work was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI 23310060) to T. Tsuge. M. Hyakutake was a recipient of a JSPS Young Scientist Fellowship (12J07940).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Innovative and Engineered Materials, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 4259 Nagatsuta, Midori-ku, Yokohama, 226-8502, Japan

    Manami Hyakutake, Hideki Abe & Takeharu Tsuge

  2. Biomass Engineering Program Cooperation Division, RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science, 2-1 Hirosawa, Wako, Saitama, 351-0198, Japan

    Manami Hyakutake & Hideki Abe

  3. Department of Biological and Chemical Systems Engineering, Kumamoto National College of Technology, 2627, Hirayamashin-machi, Yatsushiro, Kumamoto, 866-8501, Japan

    Satoshi Tomizawa

  4. Department of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, Kitakyushu National College of Technology, 5-20-1 Shii, Kokuraminami-ku, Kitakyushu, 802-0985, Japan

    Kouhei Mizuno

  5. RIKEN SPring-8 Center, 1-1-1 Koto, Sayo-cho, Sayo-gun, Hyogo, 679-5148, Japan

    Tamao Hisano

Authors
  1. Manami Hyakutake
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  2. Satoshi Tomizawa
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  3. Kouhei Mizuno
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  4. Tamao Hisano
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  5. Hideki Abe
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  6. Takeharu Tsuge
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Correspondence to Manami Hyakutake or Takeharu Tsuge.

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Hyakutake, M., Tomizawa, S., Mizuno, K. et al. A common active site of polyhydroxyalkanoate synthase from Bacillus cereus YB-4 is involved in polymerization and alcoholysis reactions. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 99, 4701–4711 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-014-6276-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-014-6276-4

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