PURIFICATION, CHARACTERIZATION, AND CLONING OF ALPHA-HYDROXYNITRILE LYASE FROM CASSAVA (MANIHOT-ESCULENTA CRANTZ)

alpha-Hydroxynitrile lyase (HNL, acetone cyanohydrin lyase, EC 4.1.2.37) was purified to homogeneity from young leaves of the cyanogenic tropical crop plant cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz). The purified protein is a homo-trimer with a subunit relative molecular mass of 28,500 on sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The active protein is not glycosylated and does not contain a flavin group. HNL exhibits complex kinetics which vary according to substrate concentration and may be related to aggregation of the enzyme. HNL activity against two natural substrates, acetone cyanohydrin and 2-butanone cyanohydrin, and one nonphysiological substrate, 2-pentanone cyanohydrin, was demonstrated. N-terminal and internal peptide sequences, obtained from HNL digested with the endoproteinase Glu-C, were used to design degenerate oligonucleotide primers for polymerase chain reaction with single-strand cDNA, using purified mRNA from cotyledons as template. The resulting DNA fragment was used to probe a cassava cotyledon cDNA library. Four cDNA clones were isolated, sequenced, and shown to contain derived amino acid sequences identical to those obtained from the purified protein. (C) 1994 Academic Press, Inc.