Abstract:
Enterococcus casseliflavus BO2, isolated from microbial contaminant of stevia leaf extract, was found to catalyze hydrolysis of steviol glycosides, sweet components of Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni (stevia) leaves. Previous studies, however, have shown that enterococci bacteria have no activity in the metabolism of steviol glycosides as well as rarely constructed recombinant steviol glycosides hydrolyzing enzyme. In this study, to ascertain E. casseliflavus BO2 responsible for this role, the B- glucosidase candidate genes were cloned and expressed in Escherichia coli with C- terminal His6-tagged form. An EcBgl4 presented both p-nitrophenyl-B-D- glucopyranoside (pNPG) and stevioside hydrolysis activity. The gene sequence analysis indicated that EcBgl 4 was a member of GH 3 glycosyl hydrolase B- glucosidase consisting of 721 amino acids, and corresponding to a molecular mass of 79.37 kDa. EcBgl 4 performed the highest functionally active form upon induction with 0.2 mM IPTG at 25 C and overnight. The protein was purified to homogeneity and the biochemical properties were characterized. Both crude extract and purified form of EcBgl 4 specifically hydrolyzed the glucose moiety of stevioside to produce rubusoside. The purified EcBgl 4 exhibited an optimum pH and temperature at 6.0 and 37 C, respectively against both pNPG and stevioside. Kinetic constants, kcat/Km for pNPG and kcat/Km for stevioside were calculated to be 8583 mM-1s-1 for and 95.41 mM-1s-1, respectively, indicating that EcBgl 4 hydrolyzed pNPG had more efficiency than stevioside. Importantly, EcBgl 4 was found to be the highest efficient enzyme that catalyzed both pNPG and stevioside compared to the stevioside hydrolyzing B- glycosidases previously reported. The enzyme showed substantial activity towards amygdalin and also hydrolyzed natural saccharides but no hydrolytic activity was observed on tested aryl-glycoside synthetic substrates. The results revealed that E. casseliflavus BO2 indeed possessed stevioside hydrolyzing activity via a novel B- glucosidase, which also served as a potential enzyme for future applications.