• Journal of Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.59 no.4
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• pp.373-377
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• 2016

An extracellular metalloprotease, Btmp, was partially purified from the culture supernatant of Bacillus thuringiensis 29-126, isolated from animal feces collected in a zoological garden in Japan, by ultrafiltration, ammonium sulfate precipitation, and a set of chromatography on Sephadex G-75 and High-Q. The molecular mass of the protease was estimated to be 60 kDa by SDS-PAGE. The enzyme showed optimum activity at $50^{\circ}C$ and pH 6.0, and had a half-life of 14 min at $50^{\circ}C$. The enzyme activity was not influenced by $Na^+$, $K^+$, $As^+$, $Mg^{+2}$, $Ca^{2+}$, $Ba^{2+}$, and phenylmethylsulfonyl fluoride, but it was moderately inhibited by $Zn^{+2}$ at a concentration of 1.0 mM, while the activity was significantly inhibited to less than 50 % by $Cu^{2+}$, $Co^{2+}$, $Cd^{2+}$, and ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid. Interestingly, the enzyme was activated to 178 % by 1.0 mM of $Mn^{2+}$. From these results, it may be suggested that the protease is a novel extracellular manganeseactivated metalloprotease.

• BMB Reports
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.109-113
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• 2001

The Serratia marcescens metalloprotease inhibitor (SmaPI) is a proteinase inhibitor toward Serratia marcescens metalloprotease (SMP). The three-dimensional structure of SmaPI was calculated by computer modeling using the structure complex between SMP and the Erwinia chrysanthemi inhibitor as a template. Based on this model structure, the substitution of the amino acid residues, Ala4, Leu-5, Pro-6, and Thr-7, were located at the hinge region of the N-terminal segment by site-directed mutagenesis. Although the A4R and T7A mutant SmaPIs showed a nearly full inhibitory activity, the inhibitory activity of SmaPI decreased significantly when the Leu-5 was converted to Ala, Gly, Ile, or Val. Surprisingly, the L5I and L5V mutant SmaPIs showed less inhibitory activities than the L5A mutant. From these results, we suggested that the orientations and positions of respective aliphatic groups in the side-chain of position 5 mainly affected the inhibitory activity of SmaPI. The overall side-chain hydrophobicity was only slightly affected. The side-chain of the Leu-5 residue contributed approximately 0.79 kcal/mol out of 8.44 kcal/mol to the binding of SmaPI with SMP The inhibitory activities of P6A and F6G were also severely decreased. The Pro-6 may have a critical role in maintaining the strict conformation of the N-terminal portion that may be important in the inhibitory activity of SmaPI. In conclusion, Leu-5 and Pro-6 have crucial roles in the inhibitory function of SmaPI toward SMP.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.861-869
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• 1999

An extracellular protease was purified to homogeneity from the culture supernatant of psychrotrophic bacteria Bacillus sp. JH 108 using procedures including ammonium sulfate fractionation, anion exchange chromatography, gel filtration chromatography, and cation exchange chromatography. The enzyme exhibited a molecular weight of 36 kDa, an optimum pH of 8 to 9, and optimum temperature of $60^{\circ}C$. The enzyme preferentially hydrolyzed leucine at the N-terminus of peptides and thus can be classified as an aminopeptidase. It was strongly inhibited by metal chelating agents such as EDTA and l, l0-phenanthroline. The activity lost by EDTA was restored with $Zn^{2+}{\;}or{\;}Co^{2+}$. These divalent cations also stimulated the native enzyme. This suggests that the enzyme is a metalloprotease acting as a leucine aminopeptidase.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.402-408
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• 2010

Plant matrix metalloproteases (MMPs) are a family of apoplastic metalloproteases closely related to human matrilysins. Up-regulation of Nicotiana benthamiana matrix metalloprotease 1 (NMMP1) expression by treatment with pathogens, ethephon and aging indicates that the gene is related to plant defense and the aging process through ethylene signaling. NMMP1 expression was higher than in normal growth leaves following infection with an incompatible pathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato T1 or a compatible pathogen P. syringae pv. tabaci and in aged leaves. Transient overexpression of NMMP1 in N. benthamiana leaves lowered the growth of P. syringae pv. tabaci. However, NMMP1-silenced leaves showed increased growth of P. syringae pv. tabaci. These data strongly suggest that NMMP1 in N. benthamiana is a defense related gene, which is positively regulated by ethylene.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Fisheries Technology Conference
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• 2000.05a
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• pp.161-162
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• 2000

Metalloprotease produced in Vibrio mimicus, in which zinc is an essential meta ion for catalytic activity, degrades a variety of biologically important substances including human collagen, several complement components, and immunoglobulin. For gene overexpression and convenient purification, VMC gene was constructed in pET22b(+) expression vector by using of PCR. (omitted)

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.33 no.10
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• pp.3248-3252
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• 2012

Vibrio extracellular metalloprotease (vEP), secreted from Vibrio vulnificus, shows various proteolytic function such as prothrombin activation and fibrinolytic activities. Premature form of vEP has an N-terminal (nPP) and a C-terminal (C-ter100) region. The nPP and C-ter100 regions are autocleaved for the matured metalloprotease activity. It has been proposed that two regions play a key role in regulating enzymatic activity of vEP. Especially, C-ter100 has a regulatory function on proteolytic activity of vEP. C-ter100 domain has been cloned into the E. coli expression vectors, pET32a and pGEX 4T-1 with TEV protease cleavage site and purified using gel-filtration chromatography followed by affinity chromatography. To understand how C-ter100 modulates proteolytic activity of vEP, structural studies were performed by heteronuclar multi-dimensional NMR spectroscopy. Backbone $^1H$, $^{15}N$ and $^{13}C$ resonances were assigned by data from standard triple resonance and HCCH-TOCSY experiments. The secondary structures of vEP C-ter100 were determined by TALOS+ and CSI software based on hydrogen/deuterium exchange. NMR data show that C-ter100 of vEP forms a ${\beta}$-barrel structure consisting of eight ${\beta}$-strands.

• Journal of Microbiology
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.160-168
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• 2000

A-factor I a microbial hormone that can positively control cell differentiation leading to spore formation and secondary metabolite formation in Streptomyces griseus. to identify a protease that is deeply involved in the morphological and physiological differentiation of Streptomyces, the proteases produced by Streptomyces griseus IFO 13350 and its A-factor deficient mutant strain, Streptomyces griseus HH1, as well as Streptomyces griseus HH1 transformed with the afsA gene were sturdied. In general Streptomyces griseus showed a higher degree of cell growth and protease activity in proportion to its ability to produce a higher amount of A-factor. In particular, the specific activity of the trypsin of Streptomyces griseus IFO 13350 was greatly enhanced more than twice compared with that of Streptomyces griseus HH1 in the later stage of growth. The specific activity of the metalloprotease of Streptomyces griseus HH1 was greatly enhanced more than twice compared with that of Streptomyces griseus IFO 13350, and this observation was reversed in the presence of thiostreptione, However, Streptomyces griseus HH1 transformed with the afsA gene showed a significantly decreased level of trypsin and metalloprotease activity compared with that of the HH1 strain. There was no significant difference between Streptomyces griseus IFO 13350 and HH1 strain in their chymotrypsin and thiol protease activity, yet the level of leu-amionpeptidase activity was 2 times higher in Streptomyces griseus HH1 than in strain IFO 13350 . Streptomyces griseus HH1 harboring afsA showed a similar level of enzyme activity , however, all the three protease activities sharply increased and the thiol protease activity was critically increased at the end of the fermentation. When a serine protease inhibitor, pefabloc SC, and metalloprotease inhibitor, EDTA, were applied to strain IFO 13350 to examine the in vivo effects of the protease inhibitors on the morpholofical differentiation, the formation of aerial meycelium and spores was delayed by two or three days.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.612-619
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• 2000

To investigate the biochemical properties of V. mimicus metalloprotease, whose gene was isolated previously from Vibrio mimicus ATCC33653, overexpression and purification were attempted. The 1.9 kb of open reading frame was amplified by PCR from pVMC193 plasmid which ligated the VMC gene with pUC19 and introduced into Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3) using the overexpression vector, pET22b (+). The overexpressed metalloprotease (VMC) was purified with Ni-NTA column chromatography and characterized with various protease inhibitors, pHs, temperatures, and substrates. The purified VMC showed the proteolytic activity against gelatin, soluble and insoluble collagens, and synthetic peptides. Unlike the observations made with all metalloproteases originated from other Vibrio sp., the VMC did not hydrolyze the casein. The proteolytic activity was critically decreased when the VMC was treated with metal chelating reagents, such as EDTA, 2,2-bipyridine, and 1, 10-phenanthroline. In particular, the 71 kDa VMC exhibited the hemagglutinating activity against human erythrocyte. As the purified VMC was treated with $CuCl_2$ and $NiCl_2$ for the chemical modification of metal binding, the proteolytic activity and hemagglutinating activity were profoundly influenced. The multialignment analysis made on the reported Vibrio metalloproteases showed the difference of amino acid sequence similarity between the two distinctive classes of Vibrio metalloproteases.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.288-296
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• 1995

To investigate high-level expression of Serratia marcescens metalloprotease (SMP) in Escherichia coli and S. marcescens, we constructed various recombinant plasmids: pSP2, containing SMP gene and lac promoter; pKSP2, containing SMP gene and tac promoter; pTSP2, containing SMP gene, trc99a promoter, and lacI$^{q}$. The recombinant E. coli (pKSP2) strain expressed SMP to a high-level, about 36% of total cellular proteins but accumulated inactive SMP precursors intracellularly, which indicated that E. coli does not have activation and secretion system for SMP. To overproduce active SMP, we transformed S. marcescens with the recombinant plasmids by a modified CaCl$_{2}$ method. The recombinant S. marcescens ATCC27117 (pSP2) containing lac promoter for SMP transcription produced 530 U/ml of active SMP on LB broth, which is about 5.1 times of the SMP yield, 105 U/ml of a control strain, S. marcescens ATCC27117 (pUC19). However, S. marcescens ATCC27117 (pKSP2) containing tac promoter for SMP transcription did not grow healthy and hardly produced SMP. To overcome a harmful effect of the strong tac promoter, we constructed a regulatory plasmid pTSP2 containing a strong trc99a promoter and its repressor gene lacI$^{q}$. When S. marcescens ATCC27117 (pTSP2) was induced with 1.0 mM IPTG after 9 hr cultivation, 2,200 U/ml of SMP was obtained in LB broth, which is about 21 times of that of a control strain.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.256-262
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• 2011

A 20.9-kDa metalloprotease was isolated from dried fruiting bodies of the wild basidiomycete mushroom Lepista nuda. The N-terminal amino acid sequence of the protease was seen to be ATFVLTAATNTLFTA, thus displaying no similarity with the sequences of previously reported metalloproteases. The protease was purified using a procedure that entailed ion-exchange chromatography on CM-Cellulose, Q-Sepharose, and Mono S, and FPLC-gel filtration on Superdex 75. The protease functioned at an optimum pH of 7.0 and an optimum temperature of $50^{\circ}C$. It was also noted that the protease demonstrated a proteolytic activity of 1,756 U/mg toward casein. The $K_m$ of the purified protease toward casein was 6.36 mg/ml at a pH of 7.0 and with a temperature of $37^{\circ}C$, whereas the $V_{max}$ was 9.11 ${\mu}g\;ml^{-1}\;min^{-1}$. The activity of the protease was adversely affected by EDTA-2Na, suggesting that it is a metalloprotease. PMSF, EGTA, aprotinin, and leupeptin exerted no striking inhibitory effect. The activity of the protease was enhanced by $Fe^{2+}$, but was curtailed by $Cd^{2+}$, $Cu^{2+}$, $Hg^{2+}$, $Pb^{2+}$, $Zn^{2+}$, and $Fe^{2+}$ ions. The protease also exhibited inhibitory activity against HIV-1 reverse transcriptase with an $IC_{50}$ value of 4.00 ${\mu}M$. The $IC_{50}$ values toward hepatoma Hep G2 and leukemia L1210 cells in vitro were 4.99 ${\mu}M$ and 3.67 ${\mu}M$, respectively.