Patent ID: 7736876

Claim:
An isolated enzyme having peptide-forming activity, said enzyme consisting of a sequence selected from the group consisting of (C), (D), (O), (P), (C2), and (D2): (C) an amino acid sequence consisting of amino acid residue numbers 21 to 619 of SEQ ID NO:12, (D) an amino acid sequence including substitution, deletion, insertion, and/or addition of one to 30 amino acid residues of the amino acid sequence of amino acid residue numbers 21 to 619 of SEQ ID NO:12, and has at least 50% of the peptide-forming activity of a protein corresponding to unmutated amino acid residue numbers 21 to 619 of SEQ ID NO:12 at 50° C. and a pH of 8, (O) an amino acid sequence consisting of SEQ ID NO:12, (P) an amino acid sequence including substitution, deletion, insertion, and/or addition of one to 30 amino acid residues of the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO:12, and has at least 50% of the peptide-forming activity of a protein corresponding to unmutated SEQ ID NO:12 at 50° C. and a pH of 8, (C2) an amino acid sequence encoded by a polynucleotide consisting of nucleotide numbers 121 to 1917 in SEQ ID NO: 11, and (D2) an amino acid sequence encoded by a polynucleotide that hybridizes with a polynucleotide comprising a nucleotide sequence complementary to the nucleotide sequence of nucleotide numbers 121 to 1917 in SEQ ID NO: 11 under stringent conditions, wherein said stringent conditions are 0.1×SSC and 0.1% SDS at 60° C., wherein said has at least 50% of the peptide-forming activity of a protein corresponding to unmutated SEQ ID NO:12 at 50° C. and a pH of 8.