A family 26 mannanase produced by Clostridium thermocellum as a component of the cellulosome contains a domain which is conserved in mannanases from anaerobic fungi

Cellulosomes prepared by the cellulose affinity digestion method from Clostridium thermocellum culture supernatant hydrolyses carob galactomannan during incubation at 60 degrees and pH 6.5. A recombinant phage expressing mannase activity was isolated from a library of C. thermocellum genomic DNA constructed in lambda ZAPII. The cloned fragment of DNA containing a putative mannanse gene (manA) was sequenced, revealing an ORF of 1767 nt, encoding in protein (mannanase A; Man26A) of 589 aa with a molecular mass of 66816 Da. The putative catalytic domain (CD) of Man26A, identified by gene sectioning and sequence comparisons, displayed up to 32% identity with other mannanases belonging to family 26. Immediately downstream of the CD and separated from it by a short proline/threonine linker was a duplicated 24-residue dockerin motif, which is conserved in all C. thermocellum cellulosomal enzymes described thus far and mediates their attachment to the cellulosome-integrating protein (CipA). Man26A consisting of the CD alone (Man26A') was hyperexpressed in Escherichia coli BL21(DSS) and purified. The truncated enzyme hydrolysed soluble and insoluble mannan, displaying a temperature optimum of 65 degrees C and a pH optimum of 6.5, but exhibited no activity against other plant cell wall polysaccharides. Antiserum raised against Man26A' crossreacted with a polypeptide with a molecular mass of 70 000 Da that is part of the C. thermocellum cellulosome. A second variant of Man26A containing the N-terminal segment of 130 residues and the CD (Man26A'') bound to ivory-nut mannan and weakly to soluble Carob galactomannan and insoluble cellulose. Man26A' consisting of the CD alone did not bind to these polysaccharides. These results indicate that the N-terminal 130 residues of mature Man26A may constitute a weak mannan-binding domain. Sequence comparisons revealed a lack of identity between this region of Man26A and other polysaccharide-binding domains, but significant identity with a region conserved in the three family 26 mannanases from the anaerobic fungus Piromyces equi.