Abstract
Three Antarctic psychrotolerant Stenotrophomonas maltophilia were isolated and the characteristics of their extracellular serine proteases were described. The isolates were able to grow at 14 and 34°C, but grew better between 20 and 28°C. The highest protease secretion was reached at 20–24°C. The purified enzyme preparations had maximal activity at 55–60°C and alkaline pH. They showed high pH stability, retaining more than 60% of residual activity after 3 h of incubation at a pH range of 4–12. The thermal stability was slightly lower compared with a commercial mesophilic protease, with 74–79% residual activity after 90 min at 40°C and 50% inactivation at 50°C between 43 and 69 min. These properties suggest that the Antarctic isolates could be adapted to cold by means of synthesising more enzymes with high activity but that the proteases they produce are not truly cold-active, being more similar to mesophilic enzymes.
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Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge the contribution of Dr. Marta Mollerach and Dr. Gabriel Gutkind and everyone at the Culture Collection CCM029, Cátedra de Microbiología, Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquimica, Universidad de Buenos Aires for their assistance in the molecular identification of the strains, and to Germán Warckmeister for the correction of the English manuscript. This work was carried out under an Agreement between Instituto Antartico Argentino and the Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquimica, Universidad de Buenos Aires and was supported in part by UBACyT TB-31 and IAA 41 grants.
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Vazquez, S., Ruberto, L. & Mac Cormack, W. Properties of extracellular proteases from three psychrotolerant Stenotrophomonas maltophilia isolated from Antarctic soil. Polar Biol 28, 319–325 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-004-0673-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-004-0673-6