Glucose dehydrogenase (GDH) is an oxidoreductase enzyme and is used as a biocatalyst to regenerate NAD(P)H in reductase-mediated chiral synthesis reactions. In this study, the glucose 1-dehydrogenase B gene (gdhB) was cloned from Bacillus thuringiensis subsp. kurstaki, and wild-type (GDH-BTWT) and His-tagged (GDH-BTN-His, GDH-BTC-His) enzymes were produced in Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3). All enzymes were produced in the soluble forms from E. coli. GDH-BTWT and GDH-BTN-His showed high specific enzymatic activities of 6.6 U/mg and 5.5 U/mg, respectively, whereas GDH-BTC-His showed a very low specific enzymatic activity of 0.020 U/mg. These results suggest that the intact C-terminal carboxyl group is important for GDH-BT activity. GDH-BTWT was stable up to 65°C, whereas GDH-BTN-His and GDH-BTC-His were stable up to 45°C. Gel permeation chromatography showed that GDH-BTWT is a dimer, whereas GDH-BTN-His and GDH-BTC-His are monomeric. These results suggest that the intact N- and C-termini are required for GDH-BT to maintain thermostability and to form its dimer structure. The homology model of the GDH-BTWT single subunit was constructed based on the crystal structure of Bacillus megaterium GDH (PDB ID 3AY6), showing that GDH-BTWT has a Rossmann fold structure with its N- and C-termini located on the subunit surface, which suggests that His-tagging affected the native dimer structure. GDH-BTWT and GDH-BTN-His regenerated NADPH in a yeast reductase-mediated chiral synthesis reaction, suggesting that these enzymes can be used as catalysts in fine-chemical and pharmaceutical industries.
Keywords: Bacillus thuringiensis; Glucose dehydrogenase; His-tag; NADPH regeneration; homology model.