Hydroquinone : O-glucosyltransferase from cultivated Rauvolfia cells: enrichment and partial amino acid sequences

Plant cell suspension cultures of Rauvolfia are able to produce a high amou nt of arbutin by glucosylation of exogenously added hydroquinone. A four st ep purification procedure using anion exchange, hydrophobic interaction, hy droxyapatite-chromatography and chromatofocusing delivered in a yield of 0. 5%, an approximately 390 fold enrichment of the involved glucosyltransferas e. SDS-PAGE showed a M-r for the enzyme of 52 kDa. Proteolysis of the pure enzyme with endoproteinase LysC revealed six peptide fragments with 9-23 am ino acids which were sequenced. Sequence alignment of the six peptides show ed high homolog ies to glycosyltransferases from other higher plants. (C) 2 000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.