• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.16 no.11
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• pp.1809-1813
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• 2006

A gene corresponding to 4-${\alpha}$-glucanotransferase (${\alpha}GTase$) was cloned from the thermophilic bacterium Thermus brockianus. The nucleotide sequence analysis showed that the ${\alpha}GTase$ gene is composed of 1,503 nucleotides and encodes a polypeptide that is 500 amino acids long with a calculated molecular mass of 57,221 Da. The deduced amino acid sequences of Thermus brockianus ${\alpha}GTase$ (TBGT) exhibited a high level of similarity to the amino acid sequence of ${\alpha}GTase$ of Thermus thermophilus (86%), but low level of homology to that of E. coli (26%). The TBGT gene was overexpressed in E. coli BL21, and the corresponding recombinant enzyme was efficiently purified by Ni-NTA affinity chromatography. The enzymatic characteristics revealed that optimal pH and temperature were pH 6 and $70^{\circ}C$, respectively. Most interestingly, TBGT reacted with small oligosaccharides, especially maltotriose, to form various maltooligosaccharides by using its disproportionation activity.