Thermostable diaphorase gene

Abstract: The present invention provides a gene derived from a thermophilic Bacillus, comprising the nucleotide sequence of SQ ID No.2 and encoding a thermostable diaphorase comprising the amino acid sequence of SQ ID No.1, a recombinant vector possessing the gene, a transformant with the recombinant vector and a process for producing the thermostable diaphorase by using the transformant.

Description: The present invention relates to a thermostable diaphorase gene, a recombinant vector possessing the gene, a transformant with the recombinant vector, and a process for producing a thermostable diaphorase using the transformant. Diaphorase [EC.1.6.99.-] is an enzyme functioning a significant role in the electron transport systems in vivo , and is also an industrially useful enzyme in vitro . That is, the diaphorase is an essential component for a clinical specimen in which NDA (nicotineamide adenine dinucleotide) reactions are involved. Diaphorase is currently prepared through isolation and purification from microorganisms. For example, microorganisms belonging to Clostridium (Kaplan, N. O., etal., Arch. Biochem. Biophys., Vol.132, p.91-98, 1969) and Bacillus have been known as microorganisms with diaphorase producing ability, which are commercially available from Sigma, Co. and Asahi Chemical Industry, Co., respectively. However, the yield of diaphorase obtained from these microorganisms is low and the diaphorase is thermally unstable, and hence the purification of the diaphorase has required extremely laborious works. The present inventors have found that thermophilic Bacillus stearothermophilus produces thermostable diaphorase endogenously, and have acquired the patents of the thermostable diaphorase-producing bacterium and a method for purifying the diaphorase (Japanese Patent Nos. 1715795 and 1973434). According to these patented invention, diaphorase with excellent thermal stability and stability under storage can be recovered and the purification thereof can be attained. However, since the thermostable diaphorase is produced by culturing the bacteria generally at a high temperature of 50 to 60°C in accordance with the patented invention described above, a vast amount of energy has been required. In addition, the yield of diaphorase obtained from the bacteria is at a low level as same as the conventional diaphorase, the problem of the difficulty in the mass production of thermostable diaphorase has not yet been solved. It is an object of the present application to provide materials for producing thermostable diaphorase at a mass scale in a genetic engineering manner, and a process for producing the thermostable diaphorase using the materials. The invention thus provides a gene derived from a thermophilic Bacillus, encoding a thermostable diaphorase comprising the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO. 1 or a variant or fragment thereof having diaphorase activity. The invention also provides a gene derived from a thermophilic Bacillus, encoding a thermostable diaphorase consisting of an amino acid sequence of which one or more amino acid residues are deleted from, substituted for, or added to the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID No. 1. The invention also provides a nucleic acid molecule comprising a sequence derived from a thermophilic Bacillus, comprising the nucleotide sequence of SEQ ID NO. 2 and encoding a thermostable diaphorase or a nucleotide sequence coding for diaphorase which is substantially homologous with or which hybridises with said sequence. Substantially homologous as used herein includes sequences having a sequence identity of approximately 50% or more e.g. 60%, 70%, 80% or 90% or more and also functionally-equivalent allelic variants and related sequences modified by single or multiple base substitution, addition or deletion. Functionally equivalent means sequences which encode a polypeptide having diaphorase activity. Also included are hybridising sequences particularly those which hybridise under conditions of high stringency. Stringency conditions can be determined according to methods known in the art e.g. described in Sambrook et al., Molecular Cloning, A Laboratory Manual, 2nd Ed., Cold Spring Harbor, NY, 1989. Analogues of the sequence, including corresponding RNA sequences are also included. The invention further provides a gene derived from a thermophilic Bacillus, consisting of a nucleotide sequence of which one or more nucleotides are deleted from, substituted for, or added to the nucleotide sequence of SEQ ID No. 2 and encoding a thermostable diaphorase. In a preferable embodiment of the invention, the thermophilic Bacillus is Bacillus stearothermophilus. The invention further provides a recombinant vector, which is a vector DNA possessing a DNA fragment comprising any one of genes of the invention. In the recombinant vector, the vector DNA is preferably an expression vector, and is capable of propagation in a host cell such as Escherichia coli. An example of such a plasmid is pKK233-3. The invention also provides a transformant, which is a cell transformed with the recombinant vector of the invention. The invention also provides another transformant, which is Escherichia coli transformed with the recombinant vector derived from pKK233-3 for example. The invention also provides a process for producing a thermostable diaphorase, comprising culturing the transformants of the invention in a culture medium and isolating the thermostable diaphorase from the cultured transformant. Fig. 1 schematically shows a view of preparing pSDE1 as one example of the recombinant vector in accordance with the present invention. In the figure, "ER" represents EcoR; "ET" represents EcoT22; "N" represents NaeI; "S" represents SmaI; "H" represents HindIII; "Terminator" represents RNA polymerase elimination sequence; "SD" represents ribosome binding sequence; and "TAC promoter" represents RNA polymerase-binding site. The thermostable diaphorase in accordance with the present invention is the protein with the amino acid sequence of SQ ID No.1 or a protein with an amino asic sequence of which one or more amino acid residues is deleted from, substituted for, or added to the amino acid sequence of SQ ID No.1. Accordingly, the gene of the invention is a gene encoding the amino acid sequence mentioned above, and more specifically, the gene comprising the nucleotide sequence of SQ ID No.2. Such gene can be obtained, for example, in a process of synthesizing partially the sequence of SQ ID No.2 and cloning the target gene from a DNA library by using the synthesized DNA as a probe, or a process of amplifying the objective gene by PCR method using the synthesized oligonucleotides corresponding to both end of SQ ID No.2 as primers and the chromosomal DNA as a template. For the thermophilic Bacillus, for example, UK-563 (FERM P-7275), ACTT-7953 (FERM P-4775), ACTT-8005 (FERM P-4776) , ACTT-10149 (FERM P-4777), NCA-1503 (FERM P-4778), SP-43 (FERM P-12754) and the like may be available. The isolation of the thermostable diaphorase gene from the Bacillus, the preparations of a recombinant vector possessing the gene and a transformant with the recombinant vector, and the culturing of the transformant can be carried out by combining together for example the methods described in Molecular Cloning (Sambrook, J., et al., Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, Cold Spring Harbor, 1989). Furthermore, the thermostable diaphorase can be prepared, by subjecting the collected transformant to lysis with ultrasonic wave or lysozyme prior to centrifugation and passing the resulting supernatant through commercially available ion exchange resins or affinity resins or the like, to separate the thermostable diaphorase. EXAMPLES The present invention will now be described more specifically in more detail in the following non-limited examples. Example 1: Identification of thermostable diaphorase gene (1) Preparation chromosomal DNA library of Bacillus stearothermophilus One gram of the bacteria of thermophilic Bacillus stearothermophilus UK-563 (FERM P-7275) was subjected to lysis with lysozyme (manufactured by Biochemical Industry, Co.) according to the known method (Saito & Miura, Biochim. Biophys., Acta, Vol.72, p.619, 1963), to then extract the DNA into an alkaline buffer containing SDS and phenol. Furthermore, the RNA was degraded with RNase, to purify the chromosomal DNA (1 mg). One hundred micrograms of the resulting chromosomal DNA was partially digested with restriction enzyme Sau3Al (manufactured by Toyobo, Co. Ltd.), to obtain a chromosomal DNA fragment (80 µg). Alternatively, 1 µg of vector pUC19 (manufactured by TaKaRa Suzou, Co.) was completely digested with BamHI (manufactured by Toyobo, Co. Ltd.), and was then treated with an alkali phosphatase derived from a bacterium (manufactured by Takara Suzou, Co. Ltd.), to obtain a vector DNA fragment (0.8 µg). By using T4 ligase-derived DNA ligase (manufactured by Takara Suzou, Co. Ltd.), the resulting chromosomal DNA fragment (0.28 µg) was ligated to the vector DNA fragment (0.1 µg) at 16 °C for 30 minutes, thereby obtaining a recombinant DNA. The resulting recombinant DNA was mixed with 200 µg of Escherichia coli JM109 competent cell (manufactured by Toyobo, Co. Ltd.), and the resulting mixture was stored at 0 °C for one hour, followed by heating at 42 °C for 120 seconds, whereby transformation was effected. The resulting transformant was inoculated into an L medium of 1 ml, for culturing at 37 °C for one hour, and the resulting culture broth was coated on an agar plate medium containing ampicillin, to generate an ampicillin-resistant bacterial strain. The bacterial strain was cultured in an L medium containing 50 µg/ml ampicillin, for overnight culturing, and after harvesting the bacteria, a plasmid was prepared by the alkali-SDS method, which was defined as a chromosomal DNA library of Bacillus stearothermophilus. (2) Isolation of the thermostable diaphorase gene Endonuclease and Exonuclease III (manufactured by GIBCO BRL, Co.) were sequentially reacted with the Bacillus stearothermophilus chromosomal DNA library, and a single-stranded DNA library was prepared. Biotinylated diaphorase probes (Di-IF and Di-IR) and magnetic beads with streptoavidin immobilized thereon were mixed with the single-stranded DNA library, and by utilizing the strong specific binding between biotin and streptoavidin, a single-stranded clone hybridized with the probes was screened by means of a magnet. By using Di-IF and Di-IR as the primers, the screened single-stranded clone was prepared into a double-stranded plasmid, which was then mixed into 200 µg of Escherichia coli JM109 competent cell (manufactured by Toyobo, Co., Ltd.) and was then stored at 0 °C for one hour, followed by heating at 42 °C for 120 seconds, whereby transformation was effected. The resulting transformant was inoculated into an L medium of 1 ml, for culturing at 37 °C for one hour, and the resulting culture broth was coated on an agar plate medium containing 50 µg/ml ampicillin, to obtained 10 colonies of ampicillin-resistant bacterial strains. So as to screen a bacterial strain carrying the thermostable diaphorase gene from the colonies, colony-PCR was performed by using Di-IF and Di-IR as the primers and DNA polymerase derived from Thermus aquaticus (manufactured by Toyobo, Co. Ltd.), according to the known method (Simpson et al., Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun., Vol.151, p.487, 1988), and it was indicated that four bacterial strains contained the diaphorase gene. (3) Determination of the nucleotide sequence of the thermostable diaphorase gene One strain was selected from the four transformant strains, and was then inoculated in an L medium (100 ml) containing ampicillin 50 µg/ml. After culturing the strain at 37 °C, the plasmid was prepared by the alkali-SDS method, which was defined as plasmid pSD1. After denaturing pSD1 (10 µg) with an alkali, chain termination reaction was conducted by using an M13 universal primer and an M13 reverse primer, according to the known method (Sanger, Nicklen & Coulson, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., Vol.74, p.5463, 1977). For the reaction, Auto Road Sequence Kit (manufactured by Pharmacia, Co.) was used. The reaction product was analyzed by using ALF DNA Sequencer (manufactured by Pharmacia, Co.), to determine the nucleotide sequence of 633 base pairs as shown in SQ ID No.2. Example 2: Preparation of recombinant vector and transformed Escherichia coli The plasmid pSD1 was cleaved at the site of Eco T221 (product of Toyobo, Co. Ltd.) where is positioned at the first nucleotide upstream the diaphorase gene, to prepare the plasmid into a linear form, which was then blunt ended with T4 phage-derived DNA polymerase (manufactured by Takara Suzou, Co. Ltd.) and was further cleaved with HindIII (product of Toyobo Co. Ltd.). Individual fragments of the cleaved linear plasmid was subjected to agarose gel electrophoresis, to obtain a DNA fragment comprising the diaphorase gene. Alternatively, pKK223-3 (manufactured by Pharmacia, Co.) was cleaved at the site of SmaI (product of Toyobo, Co. Ltd.) where is positioned at the 12th nucleotide downstream the SD sequence and at the multi-cloning site with HindIII (product of Toyobo, Co. Ltd.). By using T4 phage-derived DNA ligase (product of Takara Suzou, Co. Ltd.), the DNA fragment (0.1 µg) comprising the diaphorase gene and the vector DNA fragment (0.1 µg) were ligated together at 16 °C for 30 minutes, to obtaine a recombinant plasmid vector pSDE1 possessing the thermostable diaphorase gene. Fig.1 schematically shows the scheme of the preparation procedures of the recombinant vector pSDE1. Then, pSDE1 was mixed with 200 µg of JM109 competent cell (200 µg; manufactured by Toyobo, Co., Ltd.) and was then stored at 0 °C for one hour, followed by heating at 42 °C for 120 seconds, to transform the cell with the pSDE1. The resulting transformant was inoculated in an L medium (1 ml) for culturing at 37 °C for one hour, and the resulting culture broth was coated on an agar plate medium containing 50 µg/ml ampicillin, to generate a colony of 100 bacteria of a transformed Escherichia coli containing the thermostable diaphorase gene. One of the bacteria has been deposited as Escherichia coli JM109/pSDE1 on the date March 21, 1997 at National Institute of Bioscience and Human-Technology, the Agency of Industrial Science and Technology, MITI (Deposit Number; FERM BP-6325). Example 3: Production of thermostable diaphorase by Escherichia coli The transformed Escherichia coli JM109/pSDEI prepared in Example 3 was inoculated in an L medium (300 ml) containing 50 µg/ml ampicillin, for overnight pre-culturing at 37 °C. The pre-culture broth was inoculated in an L medium (30 liters) containing 50 µg/ml ampicillin for culturing at 37 °C for 10 hours, followed by addition of 1 mM isopropyl β -thiogalactopyranoside, for further culturing for another 15 hours. Then, the bacteria were harvested. The resulting bacteria were suspended in 25 mM phosphate buffer, pH 8.0 (1000 ml), for ultrasonication. The disrupted bacteria were discarded, and thermostable diaphorase was purified from the resulting supernatant by ion exchange chromatography by means of DEAE Sepharose and affinity chromatography by means of Blue-Sepharose. Thermostable diaphorase was recovered at a yield of 180,000 units, which is 10-fold the yield of the diaphorase recovered by culturing 30 liters of Bacillus stearothermophilus UK-563 (FERM P-7275). The properties of the recovered diaphorase were examined. The residual activity of the diaphorase after treatment at 50 °C for one hour was 100 %; the optimum pH was pH 8.0; and Km for NADH was 0.5 mM. Based on these results, it was verified that the thermostable diaphorase obtained by the present invention had the same properties as those of the diaphorase derived from Bacillus stearothermophilus UK-563 (FERM P-7275). The activity of diaphorase was assayed as follows; and the activity is expressed as described hereinbelow. More specifically, the activity was assayed, by mixing an enzyme solution with 1.0 ml of a solution containing 50 mM Tris-HCl buffer, pH 8.5, 1 mM reduction type nicotineamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) and 0.06 mM 2,6-dichlorophenol indophenol (DCIP), and determining the initial rate of the change of the absorbance at 600 nm at 30 °C. One unit of the enzyme activity is the amount of the enzyme required for the reduction of 1 µmol DCIP under the aforementioned conditions for one minute. As has been described in detail, the thermostable diaphorase can be produced at a large scale in a simple manner at low cost. SEQUENCE LISTING SEQ ID No.:1 Length: 211 Type: amino acid Molecular type: protein Sequence SEQ ID No. :2 Length: 633 Type: nucleic acid Strandeddness: double Topology: linear Molecular type: genomic DNA Original source: Organism: Bacillus stearothermophilus Strain: UK-563 (FERM P-7275) Sequence

Claims: A nucleic acid molecule comprising a sequence derivable from a thermophilic Bacillus, which (a) encodes a thermostable diaphorase comprising the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO:1 or a fragment thereof having diaphorase activity; or (b) comprises the nucleotide sequence of SEQ ID NO:2; or (c) comprises a nucleotide sequence coding for a thermostable diaphorase which: (i) has 70% or more sequence identity with SEQ ID NO:2, or (ii) which hybridises with SEQ ID NO:2 under high stringency conditions. A nucleic acid molecule as claimed in claim 1(c)(i), wherein the nucleotide sequence coding for the thermostable diaphorase has 80% or more sequence identity with SEQ ID NO:2. A nucleic acid molecule as claimed in claim 1(c)(i), wherein the nucleotide sequence coding for the thermostable diaphorase has 90% or more sequence identity with SEQ ID NO:2. The nucleic acid molecule of any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the thermophilic Bacillus is Bacillus stearothermophilus. A recombinant vector, which is a vector DNA possessing a DNA fragment comprising the nucleic acid molecule of any one of claims 1 to 4. A recombinant vector as claimed in claim 5 which is an expression vector. The recombinant vector of claim 5 or claim 6, wherein the vector DNA is a plasmid of which host cell is Escherichia coli. A recombinant vector of claim 7, wherein the plasmid is pKK223-3. A transformant, which is a cell transformed with the recombinant vector of any one of claims 5 to 8. A transformant, which is Escherichia coli transformed with the recombinant vector of any one of claims 5 to 8. A process for producing a thermostable diaphorase, comprising culturing the transformant of claim 9 or claim 10 in a culture medium and isolating the thermostable diaphorase from the cultured transformant.

Inventors: HITOSHI KONDO, MUNEHIKI DOMBOU, SHIDO KAWASE, HITOSHI, KONDO, MUNEHIKI, DOMBOU, SHIDO, KAWASE, Hitoshi, Kondo c/o Unitika Ltd., Research &amp; Deve, Munehiki, Dombou c/o Unitika Ltd., Research &amp; Deve, Shido, Kawase c/o Unitika Ltd., Research &amp; Develop
Applicants: UNITIKA LTD, UNITIKA LTD.
Application year: 1998
Main classification: C12N15
IPC codes: C12N9, C12N1, C12N15, C12R1, C07H21