Studies on Thermostable Tryptophanase from a Symbiotic Thermophile

Thermostable tryptophanase was extracted from a thermophilie bacterium, strain T which was absolutely symbiotic with strain 5. The enzyme was purified 14.7 fold with 5.8% yield by chromatographies using ion exchange, gel filtration, and hydrophobic interaction columns, followed by high performance liquid chromatography on hydroxyapatite column. The purified enzyme has a molecular weight of approximately 210,000 estimated by gel filtration column chromatography, and the molecular weight of subunit was determined by SDS polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis to be 46,000, which indicates that the native enzyme is made of four homologous subunits. The tryptophanase was stable at 65o0 and the optimum temperature for the enzyme activity for 20 min reaction was 70$^{\circ}C$. The purified enzyme activity for 20 min ieaction was 70$^{\circ}C$. The purified enzyme catalyzed the degradation of L-tryptophan into indole, pyruvate and ammonia in the presence of pyridoxal phosphate. 5-Hydroxy-Ltryptophan, 5-methyl-DL-tryptophan, L-cysteine, S-methyl-L-cysteine, 5-methyl-DL-tryptophan, L-cysteine, S-methyl-Lcysteine, and L-serine were also used as substrates to form pyruvate. The amino acid composition of the tryptophanase was determined, and found to contain a high percentage of hydrophobic amino acids, especially in the proline content, which was much higher than that of Escherichia coli tryptophanase. In addition, the 35N-terminal amino acid sequence of the tryptophanase was completely different from that of E. coli tryptophanase.