Identification and characterization of a ginsenoside-transforming β-glucosidase from Pseudonocardia sp. Gsoil 1536 and its application for enhanced production of minor ginsenoside Rg2(S)

PLoS One. 2014 Jun 9;9(6):e96914. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0096914. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

The ginsenoside Rg2(S), which is one of the pharmaceutical components of ginseng, is known to have neuroprotective, anti-inflammation, and anti-diabetic effects. However, the usage of ginsenoside Rg2(S) is restricted owing to the small amounts found in white and red ginseng. To enhance the production of ginsenoside Rg2(S) as a 100 gram unit with high specificity, yield, and purity, an enzymatic bioconversion method was developed to adopt the recombinant glycoside hydrolase (BglPC28), which is a ginsenoside-transforming recombinant β-glucosidase from Pseudonocardia sp. strain Gsoil 1536. The gene, termed bglPC28, encoding β-glucosidase (BglPC28) belonging to the glycoside hydrolase family 3 was cloned. bglPC28 consists of 2,232 bp (743 amino acid residues) with a predicted molecular mass of 78,975 Da. This enzyme was overexpressed in Escherichia coli BL21(DE3) using a GST-fused pGEX 4T-1 vector system. The optimum conditions of the recombinant BglPC28 were pH 7.0 and 37 °C. BglPC28 can effectively transform the ginsenoside Re to Rg2(S); the Km values of PNPG and Re were 6.36 ± 1.10 and 1.42 ± 0.13 mM, respectively, and the Vmax values were 40.0 ± 2.55 and 5.62 ± 0.21 µmol min-1 mg-1 of protein, respectively. A scaled-up biotransformation reaction was performed in a 10 L jar fermenter at pH 7.0 and 30°C for 12 hours with a concentration of 20 mg/ml of ginsenoside Re from American ginseng roots. Finally, 113 g of Rg2(S) was produced from 150 g of Re with 84.0 ± 1.1% chromatographic purity. These results suggest that this enzymatic method could be usefully exploited in the preparation of ginsenoside Rg2(S) in the cosmetics, functional food, and pharmaceutical industries.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Actinomycetales / enzymology*
  • Actinomycetales / genetics
  • Actinomycetales / metabolism
  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Biotransformation
  • Cloning, Molecular
  • Ginsenosides / biosynthesis*
  • Kinetics
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Phylogeny
  • Recombinant Proteins / chemistry
  • Recombinant Proteins / genetics
  • Recombinant Proteins / isolation & purification
  • Recombinant Proteins / metabolism
  • beta-Glucosidase / chemistry
  • beta-Glucosidase / genetics*
  • beta-Glucosidase / isolation & purification
  • beta-Glucosidase / metabolism*

Substances

  • Ginsenosides
  • Recombinant Proteins
  • ginsenoside Rg2
  • ginsenoside-beta-glucosidase
  • beta-Glucosidase

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Intelligent Synthetic Biology Center of Global Frontier Project funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (2011-0031967) of Republic of Korea and by the China Major Projects No. 2012ZX09503001-003. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.