The Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 genome harbours a Deg gene family consisting of three members, htrA （degP, slr1204）, hhoA （degQ, sll1679） and hhoB （degS, sll1427）. This work provided biochemical characterization of HhoA, HtrA and HhoB from Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803. Firstly mature HhoA, HhoB and HtrA from Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 were cloned and expressed as soluble recombinant his-tagged fusion protein in Escherichia coli. Then the proteolytic activity of HhoA, HhoB and HtrA was tested using casein, bovine serum albumin, five recombinant chromoproteins and cyanobacterial phycocyanin as substrates in vitro. The experimental results showed that HhoA and HtrA had proteolytic activity on casein, five recombinant chromoproteins and cyanobacterial phycocyanin. No proteolytic activity of HhoB was found using all substrates in vitro, indicating functional difference among Deg proteases from Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803. Therefore, the results indicated the biochemical properties of HhoA and HtrA on hydrolysis of proteins and phycobiliproteins in vitro, which implicated that they were proteases possibly involved in phycobiliprotein degradation in vivo.
In Gloeobacter violaceus PCC 7421, three possible lyase genes glr1191, glr1182 and gll1188 were selected by Blast sorting. The coded proteins of these three genes were co-expressed with their substrate protein in E. coli, respectively, and some chromoproteins were obtained. The fluorescence spectra showed that high fluorescence intensity was observed in the three experimental groups that involved the lyase genes, but little fluorescence intensity was observed in negative control groups. The ratio of relative fluorescence intensity in the experimental group with glr1191 was 64.8%. The result of SDS-PAGE indicated that the molecular weights of the three chromoproteins were 22.0 10 3 , 23.6 10 3 and 22.1 10 3 , respectively. The result of zinc-induced fluorescence re- vealed that the phycobilin in the three chromoproteins was covalently coupled to their apo-proteins. The result also showed that the coded proteins of these three genes （CpeS1 , CpeT1 , CpeY ）could cata- lyze the covalent coupling of different phycobilins to their apo- proteins and formed active chromoproteins.
CHEN YuWU XianjunZHANG JuanPAN ZhongZHAO KaihongZHOU Ming
