Part:BBa_K782059

Alginate lyase

Introduction

Alginate lyases are not present in mammalian cells but have been found in bacteria, algae and marine mollusks. It has already been demonstrated that the addition of alginate lyase degraded alginate-poly(L-lysine)-alginate microcapsules (Breguet et al., 2007). Alginate lyases degrade alginate by the reaction of β-elimination and are classified based on their substrates: some prefer M-rich alginate, whereas others prefer G-rich. Therefore we selected an enzyme that could degrade both, G- and M-blocks of alginate. We found the alginate lyase from bacteria Pseudoalteromonas elyakovii to be a promising candidate, which can degrade all types of alginate (Sawabe et al., 2007). We replaced the original bacterial signal peptide with the preprotrypsin leader sequence to ensure the efficient secretion from mammalian cells and attached a Myc tag at the C-terminus to facilitate the detection of secreted enzyme.

Figure 1. Schematic representation of the BioBrick part for the alginate lyase engineered for secretion from eukaryotic cells. PPT LS denotes preprotrypsin leader sequence, aly is alginate lyase coding sequence and Myc indicates Myc peptide tag for detection. E = EcoRI restriction site, X = XbaI restriction site, S = SpeI restriction site, P = PstI restriction site.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a well-known opportunistic pathogen, secretes alginate lyase to degrade the alginate that forms the mucoid matrix composing the bacterial biofilm (Schiller et al., 1993). This alginate lyase might therefore also be used for medical applications to degrade the viscous polysaccharide coat of Pseudomonas in patients with cystic fibrosis.

• The coding sequence for alginate lyase was constructed from 3 gBlocks that were a gift from IDT (Integrated DNA Technology).

Characterization

To estimate the production of constructed alginate lyase, HEK293T cells were transfected with vector containing alginate lyase downstream of constitutive promoter. After 48 h of protein production cell lysates were prepared. Western blots of lysates were obtained and produced alginate lyase was detected with anti-Myc antibodies.

Figure 2. Production of alginate lyase in HEK293T cells. Lysates of alginate lyase-producing cells (48 h production) were loaded and ran on SDS-PAGE gel. Proteins were blotted on nitrocellulose membrane detected by immunoblot using anti-Myc antibodies. Mark corresponding to predicted alginate lyase's size is denoted with arrow.

The enzymatic activity was demonstrated by a decrease of the diameter of alginate beads determined by microscopy. Both P. elyakovii alginate lyases (BBa_K782059 and BBa_K782062) degraded alginate beads, decreasing the beads' diameter by 50 % in comparison to the control.

Figure 3. Enzymatic activity of secreted alginate lyases. Alginate lyases from P. elyakovii and P. aeruginosa (BBa_K782059 and BBa_K782062) were produced and secreted by transfected HEK293T cells. Growth media with secreted alginate lyases was concentrated 50-times with Sartorius Vivaspin 6 concentrators (5 kDa MWCO PES). Alginate beads were incubated in concentrated supernatant. For easier observation under confocal microscope, we added 2000 kDa FITC-dextran (depicted in green) to cell supernatants. Beads' diameters were assessed using Leica LAS Image Analysis software.

Refrences

Breguet, V., and Stockar, U. (2007) Characterization of alginate lyase activity on liquid, gelled, and complexed states of alginate. Biotechnol. Prog. 21, 1223–1230.

Sawabe, T., Takahashi, H., Ezura, Y., and Gacesa, P. (2001) Cloning, sequence analysis and expression of Pseudoalteromonas elyakovii IAM 14594 gene (alyPEEC) encoding the extracellular alginate lyase. Carbohydrate Res. 335, 11–21.

Schiller, N., Monday, S., and Boyd, C. (1993) Characterization of the Pseudomonas aeruginosa alginate lyase gene (algL): cloning, sequencing, and expression in Escherichia coli. J. Bacteriol. 175, 4780–4789.

Sequence and Features

Assembly Compatibility:

• 10
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[10]
• 12
  INCOMPATIBLE WITH RFC[12]

  Illegal NheI site found at 64
  
• 21
  INCOMPATIBLE WITH RFC[21]

  Illegal XhoI site found at 7
  
• 23
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[23]
• 25
  INCOMPATIBLE WITH RFC[25]

  Illegal NgoMIV site found at 85
  Illegal NgoMIV site found at 820
  
• 1000
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[1000]