Cloning, expression, purification and preliminary X-ray analysis of a putative metagenome-derived lipase

LipS is a novel thermostable putative lipase that was isolated from a metagenomic library using functional screening methods. The corresponding gene shows high similarity to that encoding a putative but uncharacterized esterase from Symbiobacterium thermophilum IAM14863 (99% nucleotide-sequence similarity). Two different constructs of the recombinant lipase were crystallized. Crystals belonging to space group P42212 diffracted X-ray radiation to 2.8 angstrom resolution and crystals belonging to space group P4 diffracted to 2.0 angstrom resolution. The most probable content of their asymmetric units were two molecules (P42212) and four or five molecules (P4), respectively.