The ability of catalyzing indole into indigo of gene engineering strain expressing P450 BM3 immobi- lized by entrapment in calcium-alginate gel capsules was examined,and various characteristics of immobilized cells were assessed.Optimum conditions for cells activity were not affected after immobilization,and pH and tempera- ture for both free and immobilized cells were found to be pH 7.5 and 35℃,respectively.The immobilized cells ex- hibited a markedly improved thermal stability than free cells.After five repeated experiments,the yield of indigo with the immobilized cells retained over 94%of their original activity,which indicated that the operational stability for recycling in batch processes was improved.
A Lactobacillus brevis CGMCC 1306 isolated from fresh milk without pasteurization was found to have higher glutamate decarboxylase (GAD) activity. An effective isolation and purification procedure of GAD from a cell-free extract of Lactobacillus brevis was developed, and the procedure included four steps: 30%-90% saturation (NH4)2SO4 fractional precipitation, Q sepharose FF anion-exchange chromatography, sephacryl S-200 gel filtration, and resource Q anion-exchange chromatography. Using this protocol, the purified GAD was demonstrated to possess electrophoretic homogeneity via SDS-PAGE. The purification fold and activity recovery of GAD were 43.78 and 16.95%, respectively. The molecular weight of the purified GAD was estimated to be approximately 62 kDa via SDS-PAGE. The optimum pH and temperature of the purified GAD were 4.4 and 37℃, respectively. The purified GAD had a half-life of 50rain at 45℃ and the Km value of the enzyme from Lineweaver-Burk plot was found to be 8.22.5'-pyridoxal phosphate (PLP) had little effect on the regulation of its activity.