A method of expression for an oxygen-tolerant group III alcohol dehydrogenase from Pyrococcus horikoshii OT3

A method of expression for an oxygen-tolerant group III alcohol dehydrogenase from Pyrococcus horikoshii OT3

JBIC Journal of Biological Inorganic Chemistry, January 2017

28084552

Chikanobu Sugimoto, Kouta Takeda, Yumi Kariya, Hirotoshi Matsumura, Masafumi Yohda, Hiroyuki Ohno, Nobuhumi Nakamura

NAD(P)-dependent group III alcohol dehydrogenases (ADHs), well known as iron-activated enzymes, generally lose their activities under aerobic conditions due to their oxygen-sensitivities. In this paper, we expressed an extremely thermostable group III ADH from the hyperthermophilic archaeon Pyrococcus horikoshii OT3 (PhADH) heterologously in Escherichia coli. When purified from a culture medium containing nickel, the recombinant PhADH (Ni-PhADH) contained 0.85 ± 0.01 g-atoms of nickel per subunit. Ni-PhADH retained high activity under aerobic conditions (9.80 U mg(-1)), while the enzyme expressed without adding nickel contained 0.46 ± 0.01 g-atoms of iron per subunit and showed little activity (0.27 U mg(-1)). In the presence of oxygen, the activity of the Fe(2+)-reconstituted PhADH prepared from the Ni-PhADH was gradually decreased, whereas the Ni(2+)-reconstituted PhADH maintained enzymatic activity. These results indicated that PhADH with bound nickel ion was stable in oxygen. The activity of the Ni(2+)-reconstituted PhADH prepared from the expression without adding nickel was significantly lower than that from the Ni-PhADH, suggesting that binding a nickel ion to PhADH in this expression system contributed to protecting against inactivation during the expression and purification processes. Unlike other thermophilic group III ADHs, Ni-PhADH showed high affinity for NAD(H) rather than NADP(H). Furthermore, it showed an unusually high k cat value toward aldehyde reduction. The activity of Ni-PhADH for butanal reduction was increased to 60.7 U mg(-1) with increasing the temperature to 95 °C. These findings provide a new strategy to obtain oxygen-sensitive group III ADHs.