Construction and Evaluation of Peptide-Linked Lactobacillus brevis ß-Galactosidase Heterodimers.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: ß-galactosidases are enzymes that are utilized to hydrolyze lactose into galactose and glucose, and are is widely used in the food industry. OBJECTIVE: We describe the recombinant expression of an unstudied, heterodimeric ß-galactosidase originating from Lactobacillus brevis ATCC 367 in Escherichia coli. Furthermore, six different constructs, in which the two protein subunits were fused with different peptide linkers, were also investigated. METHODS: The heterodimeric subunits of the ß-galactosidase were cloned in expressed in various expression constructs, by using either two vectors for the independent expression of each subunit, or using a single Duet vector for the co-expression of the two subunits. RESULTS: The co-expression in two independent expression vectors only resulted in low ß-galactosidase activities, whereas the co-expression in a single Duet vector of the independent and fused subunits increased the ß-galactosidase activity significantly. The recombinant ß-galactosidase showed comparable hydrolyzing properties towards lactose, N-acetyllactosamine, and pNP-ß-D-galactoside. CONCLUSION: The usability of the recombinant L. brevis ß-galactosidase was further demonstrated by the hydrolysis of human, bovine, and goat milk samples. The herein presented fused ß-galactosidase constructs may be of interest for analytical research as well as in food- and biotechnological applications.