RESULTS: All HPs of B. lehensis G1 were grouped according to their predicted functions based on the presence of functional domains in their sequences. From the metal-binding group of HPs of the cluster, an HP termed Bleg1_2507 was discovered to contain a thioredoxin (Trx) domain and highly-conserved metal-binding ligands represented by Cys69, Cys73 and His159, similar to all prokaryotic and eukaryotic Sco proteins. The built 3D structure of Bleg1_2507 showed that it shared the βαβαββ core structure of Trx-like proteins as well as three flanking β-sheets, a 310 -helix at the N-terminus and a hairpin structure unique to Sco proteins. Docking simulations provided an interesting view of Bleg1_2507 in association with its putative cytochrome c oxidase subunit II (COXII) redox partner, Bleg1_2337, where the latter can be seen to hold its partner in an embrace, facilitated by hydrophobic and ionic interactions between the proteins. Although Bleg1_2507 shares relatively low sequence identity (47%) to BsSco, interestingly, the predicted metal-binding residues of Bleg1_2507 i.e. Cys-69, Cys-73 and His-159 were located at flexible active loops similar to other Sco proteins across biological taxa. This highlights structural conservation of Sco despite their various functions in prokaryotes and eukaryotes.
CONCLUSIONS: We propose that HP Bleg1_2507 is a Sco protein which is able to interact with COXII, its redox partner and therefore, may possess metallochaperone and redox functions similar to other documented bacterial Sco proteins. It is hoped that this scientific effort will help to spur the search for other physiologically relevant proteins among the so-called "orphan" proteins of any given organism.
RESULTS: Different production media were tested for lipase production by a newly isolated thermophilic Geobacillus sp. strain ARM (DSM 21496 = NCIMB 41583). The maximum production was obtained in the presence of peptone and yeast extract as organic nitrogen sources, olive oil as carbon source and lipase production inducer, sodium and calcium as metal ions, and gum arabic as emulsifier and lipase production inducer. The best models for optimization of culture parameters were achieved by multilayer full feedforward incremental back propagation network and modified response surface model using backward elimination, where the optimum condition was: growth temperature (52.3 degrees C), medium volume (50 ml), inoculum size (1%), agitation rate (static condition), incubation period (24 h) and initial pH (5.8). The experimental lipase activity was 0.47 Uml(-1) at optimum condition (4.7-fold increase), which compared well to the maximum predicted values by ANN (0.47 Uml(-1)) and RSM (0.476 Uml(-1)), whereas R2 and AAD were determined as 0.989 and 0.059% for ANN, and 0.95 and 0.078% for RSM respectively.
CONCLUSION: Lipase production is the result of a synergistic combination of effective parameters interactions. These parameters are in equilibrium and the change of one parameter can be compensated by changes of other parameters to give the same results. Though both RSM and ANN models provided good quality predictions in this study, yet the ANN showed a clear superiority over RSM for both data fitting and estimation capabilities. On the other hand, ANN has the disadvantage of requiring large amounts of training data in comparison with RSM. This problem was solved by using statistical experimental design, to reduce the number of experiments.