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Simultaneous Retention of Thermostability and Specific Activity in Chimeric Human Alkaline Phosphatases

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Abstract

Alkaline phosphatases (APs) are a family of dimeric metalloenzymes that has been utilized in many areas due to its ability to hydrolyze a variety of phosphomonoesters. While mammalian APs have higher specific activity than prokaryotic APs, they are generally less thermostable. To cultivate the possibility to confer mammalian APs with higher thermostability as well as high activity, we focused on human AP isozymes. Among the four isozymes of human APs, placental AP (PLAP) retains the highest thermostability, while intestinal AP (IAP) has the highest specific activity. Since the two APs display high homology, a series of chimeric enzymes were made in a secreted form to analyze their properties. Surprisingly, chimeric APs with IAP residues at the N-terminal and PLAP residues at the C-terminal regions showed higher specific activity than PLAP, while keeping thermostability as high as PLAP. Especially, one showed similar specific activity to IAP, while showing slower inactivation than PLAP after incubation at 75 °C. Interestingly, the mutant also showed higher resistance to uncompetitive inhibitors Phe and Leu than their parent enzymes, possibly due to increased hydrophilicity of the active site entrance residues. The obtained chimera will be useful as a novel reporter in various assays including gene hybridization.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Yusuke Tomozoe, Yoshiyuki Hiraishi, Kyoichi Matsuba, Hironosuke Hayashi, and Noriho Kamiya for their valuable suggestions. This project was partly supported by PRESTO program, JST, Japan, by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B20360368, B24360336) from JSPS, Japan, and by the Global COE Program for Chemistry Innovation, MEXT, Japan. We also thank Fujifilm Co. and Hitachi-Aloka Medical Systems Co. for financial support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry and Biotechnology, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-8656, Japan

    Yoshiyuki Sasajima, Yusuke Kohama, Miki Kojima-Misaizu, Naoya Kurokawa, Yuko Hara, Jinhua Dong, Masaki Ihara & Hiroshi Ueda

  2. Chemical Resources Laboratory, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 4259-R1-18 Nagatsuta-cho, Midori-ku, Yokohama, 226-8503, Japan

    Yuko Hara, Jinhua Dong & Hiroshi Ueda

Authors
  1. Yoshiyuki Sasajima
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  2. Yusuke Kohama
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  3. Miki Kojima-Misaizu
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  4. Naoya Kurokawa
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  5. Yuko Hara
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  6. Jinhua Dong
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  7. Masaki Ihara
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  8. Hiroshi Ueda
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Correspondence to Hiroshi Ueda.

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Sasajima, Y., Kohama, Y., Kojima-Misaizu, M. et al. Simultaneous Retention of Thermostability and Specific Activity in Chimeric Human Alkaline Phosphatases. Mol Biotechnol 56, 953–961 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12033-014-9774-9

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