Antarctic rahnella inusitata: A producer of cold-stable β-galactosidase enzymes

Kattia Núñez-Montero, Rodrigo Salazar, Andrés Santos, Olman Gómez-Espinoza, Scandar Farah, Claudia Troncoso, Catalina Hoffmann, Damaris Melivilu, Felipe Ignacio Scott, Leticia Barrientos Díaz*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

There has been a recent increase in the exploration of cold-active β-galactosidases, as it offers new alternatives for the dairy industry, mainly in response to the current needs of lactose-intolerant consumers. Since extremophilic microbial compounds might have unique physical and chemical properties, this research aimed to study the capacity of Antarctic bacterial strains to pro-duce cold-active β-galactosidases. A screening revealed 81 out of 304 strains with β-galactosidase activity. The strain Se8.10.12 showed the highest enzymatic activity. Morphological, biochemical, and molecular characterization based on whole-genome sequencing confirmed it as the first Rahnella inusitata isolate from the Antarctic, which retained 41–62% of its β-galactosidase activity in the cold (4 C–15 C). Three β-galactosidases genes were found in the R. inusitata genome, which belong to the glycoside hydrolase families GH2 (LacZ and EbgA) and GH42 (BglY). Based on molecular docking, some of these enzymes exhibited higher lactose predicted affinity than the commercial control enzyme from Aspergillus oryzae. Hence, this work reports a new Rahnella inusitata strain from the Antarctic continent as a prominent cold-active β-galactosidase producer.

Original languageEnglish
Article number4144
JournalInternational Journal of Molecular Sciences
Volume22
Issue number8
DOIs
StatePublished - 16 Apr 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This research was funded by the INSTITUTO ANTÁRTICO CHILENO (INACH), grant INACH RT_14-12, and INACH DG_01-19; UFRO/UANDES, grant INI4 from; UNIVERSIDAD DE LA FRONTERA, grant DI19-0079 and grant DI20-2018, NETWORK FOR EXTREME ENVIRONMENTS RESEARCH (NEXER), grant NXR17-0003; and CONICYT, grants CONICYT-PFCHA/Doctorado Nacional/2017-21170263 for K.N.-M., CONICYT-PFCHA/Doctorado Nacional/2017-21171392 to A.S., and CONICYT-PFCHA/Doctorado Nacional/2017-21170265 to O.G.-E. F. Scott gratefully ac-knowledges financial support by the National Agency for Research and Development (ANID Chile) (Fondecyt Iniciación 11170081). We acknowledge Carolina Shene deVidts and Allison Leyton from the Center for Food Biotechnology and Bioseparations for performing the Chromatographic Analyses, as well as Karina Godoy for her help in the microscopic analyses, both from the Scientific and Technological Bioresource Nucleus (BIOREN) of Universidad de La Frontera, Temuco, Chile.

Funding Information:
Funding: This research was funded by the INSTITUTO ANTÁRTICO CHILENO (INACH), grant INACH RT_14-12, and INACH DG_01-19; UFRO/UANDES, grant INI4 from; UNIVERSIDAD DE LA FRONTERA, grant DI19-0079 and grant DI20-2018, NETWORK FOR EXTREME ENVIRONMENTS RESEARCH (NEXER), grant NXR17-0003; and CONICYT, grants CONICYT-PFCHA/Doctorado Nacional/2017-21170263 for K.N.-M., CONICYT-PFCHA/Doctorado Nacional/2017-21171392 to A.S., and CONICYT-PFCHA/Doctorado Nacional/2017-21170265 to O.G.-E. F. Scott gratefully acknowledges financial support by the National Agency for Research and Development (ANID Chile) (Fondecyt Iniciación 11170081).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Keywords

  • Antarctica
  • Cold-adapted bacteria
  • Extremozymes
  • Galactosidase
  • Lactose

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