One-step purification and biochemical characterization of a (s)-stereospecific esterase from Pseudomonas fluorescens KCTC 1767

The Pseudomonas fluorescens KCTC 1767, a selected and identified as potential candidate for stereo-specific resolution of rac-ketoprofen ethyl ester, was systematically investigated in order to induce the high level expression and detailed characterization of the expressing enzyme esterase. We cloned the esterase gene from chromosomal DNA of Pseudomonas fluorescens KCTC 1767 by PCR with two synthetic primers that desinged for simple purification. The recombinant esterase from Pseudomonas fluorescens KCTC 1767 exibited a high conversion rate and enantioselectivity to the (S)-ketoprofen ethyl ester as expected. The enzyme was easily purified to homogeniety by using a metal chelating affinity chromatography as a protein with poly histidine taq, and thus obtained 0.6 mg of protein from a 100 mL culture broth in a single step. The purified enzyme was steadily stable at the pH range from 7.0 to 10. The activity was also retained to be about 70% after the preincubation at $40^{\circ}C$ but over $50^{\circ}C$ lost the activity completely. The molecular mass of the esterase was estimated to be about 43 kDa on SDS-PAGE, and an identical result was also shown in gel filteration chromatography. The specific activity was calculated 27 mM/mg-protein/min by using the rac-ketoprofen ethly ester as a substrate.