Cd. Skory et Sn. Freer, CLONING AND CHARACTERIZATION OF A GENE ENCODING A CELL-BOUND, EXTRACELLULAR BETA-GLUCOSIDASE IN THE YEAST CANDIDA-WICKERHAMII, Applied and environmental microbiology, 61(2), 1995, pp. 518-525
The ability of yeasts to ferment cellodextrins is rare. Candida wicker
hamii is able to use these sugars for alcohol production because of a
cell-bound, extracellular, beta-glucosidase that is unusual by not bei
ng inhibited by glucose. A cDNA expression library in lambda phage was
prepared with mRNA isolated from cellobiose grown C. wickerhamii. Imm
unological screening of the library with polyclonal antibodies against
purified C. wickerhamii cell-bound, extracellular beta-glucosidase yi
elded 12 positive clones. Restriction endonuclease analysis and sequen
ce data revealed that the clones could be divided into two groups, bgl
A and bglB, which were shown to be genetically distinct by Southern hy
bridization analyses. Efforts were directed at the study of bglB since
it appeared to code for the cell-bound beta-glucosidase. Sequence dat
a from both cDNA and genomic clones showed the absence of introns in b
glB. Sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and imm
unoblotting of cell lysates from Escherichia coli bglB clones confirme
d the presence of an expressed protein with an apparent molecular mass
of 72 kDa, which is consistent with that expected for an unglycosylat
ed form of the enzyme, Amino acid comparisons of BglB with other beta-
glucosidase sequences suggest that it is a member of family 1 glycosyl
hydrolases but is unusual in that it contains an additional 100 to 13
0 amino acids at the N terminus. This sequence did not have homologies
to other known protein sequences and may impart unique properties to
this beta-glucosidase.