Cloning and expression of lipase gene to enantioselective resolution of (S)-ketoprofen

Abstract:

We screened a strain NK13 for a certain extent asymmetric hydrolysis the rac-ketoprofen Chloroethyl ester to (S)-Ketoprofen. As identified, NK13 was Bacillus megaterium. Digested NK13 genomic DNA with Sau3AΙ partially and recovered the fragment from 2 kb to 6 kb, cleaved the plasmid of pUC18 with BamH Ι, ligated the 2?6 kb fragment of NK13 genomic DNA into pUC18 plasmid, and then transformed an Escherichia coli strain DH5α. We created the gene library of NK13 and obtained a positive clone, pUC-NK1 in the library from the tributyrin flat. The result of sequencing showed that there was a whole open read frame (ORF) of 633 bp lipase gene in the plasmid of pUC-NK1. To compare with the genes of GenBank, this lipase gene was reported firstly (GenBank Accession No. EU381317). The lipase gene was amplified by PCR, using pUC-NK1 plasmid as template, and subcloned into the high expression vector pET21b(+) under the control of T7 promoter. The recombinant plasmid, pET-NKest1, was then transformed into an Escherichia coli strain BL21 (DE3) for the production of recombinant lipase protein. After 3 hours of induction by isopropyl-β-D-thiogalactoside (IPTG), lipase was expressed. SDS-PAGE analysis showed that the relative molecular mass of the lipase protein was about 20 kDa. The result of high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) showed that the conversion rate of the recombinant strain was fifty times than the wild strain NK13’s. The (S)-Ketoprofen enantiomeric excess of the recombinant strain was 75.28%, which indicated that the lipase could hydrolyze (S)-Ketoprofen Chloroethyl ester firstly. If we research the conditions of the hydrolysis rac-ketoprofen Chloroethyl ester of this lipase further, maybe it could offer a foundation to product (S)-Ketoprofen industrially.