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Enhanced Solubility and One-Step Purification of Functional Dimeric Carboxypeptidase G2

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Abstract

Carboxypeptidase G2 is a bacterial enzyme that catalyzes methotrexate conversion to its inactive forms which are then eliminated via a non-renal pathway in patients with renal disorders during a high-dose methotrexate administration. Due to the increasing demand of this enzyme, it was of interest to simplify its production process. For this reason, we developed a method for production and one-step purification of this enzyme using an intein-mediated system with a chitin-binding affinity tag. The carboxypeptidase G2 gene from Pseudomonas RS16 was optimized, synthesized, cloned into the pTXB1 expression vector and finally transformed into Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3) cells. The optimal condition for the enzyme soluble expression was achieved in 2×YT medium containing 1% glucose at 25°C for 30 h with 0.5 mM IPTG. The enzyme without intein was expressed as inclusion bodies indicating the importance of intein for the protein solubility. The expressed homodimer protein was purified to homogeneity on a chitin affinity column. The Km and kcat values of 6.5 µM and 4.57 s–1, respectively, were obtained for the purified enzyme. Gel filtration analysis indicated that the resulting recombinant protein was a dimer of 83 kDa. Fluorescence and circular dichroism spectroscopy confirmed the enzyme tertiary and secondary structures, respectively. The use of intein-mediated system provided the possibility of the one-step carboxypeptidase G2 purification, paving the way to the application of this enzyme in pharmaceutics.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully appreciate the Research Council of Tarbiat Modares University, Prof. Khosro Khajeh, and Iran National Institute for Medical Research Development (NIMAD, project 940711) for their financial support through this investigation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, 14115, Tehran, Iran

    Atefeh Khodakarami, Bahareh Dabirmanesh & Mohammad Khaledi

  2. Department of Biotechnology, College of Science, University of Tehran, 14115, Tehran, Iran

    Sedigheh Asad

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  1. Atefeh Khodakarami
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  2. Bahareh Dabirmanesh
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Correspondence to Bahareh Dabirmanesh.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest. This article does not contain description of studies with the involvement of humans or animal subjects.

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Khodakarami, A., Dabirmanesh, B., Asad, S. et al. Enhanced Solubility and One-Step Purification of Functional Dimeric Carboxypeptidase G2. Biochemistry Moscow 86, 190–196 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0006297921020073

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