Carboxylic acid reductases (CARs) are attracting burgeoning attention as biocatalysts for organic synthesis of aldehydes and their follow-up products from economic carboxylic acid precursors. The CAR enzyme class as a whole, however, is still poorly understood. To date, relatively few CAR sequences have been reported, especially from fungal sources. Here, we sought to increase the diversity of the CAR enzyme class. Six new CAR sequences from the white-rot fungus Pycnoporus cinnabarinus were identified from genome-wide mining. Genome and gene clustering analysis suggests that these PcCAR enzymes play different natural roles in Basidiomycete systems, compared to their type II Ascomycete counterparts. The cDNA sequences of all six Pccar genes were deduced and analysis of their corresponding amino acid sequence showed that they encode for proteins of similar properties that possess a conserved modular functional tri-domain arrangement. Phylogenetic analyses showed that all PcCAR enzymes cluster together with the other type IV CARs. One candidate, PcCAR4, was cloned and over-expressed recombinantly in Escherichia coli. Subsequent biotransformation-based screening with a panel of structurally-diverse carboxylic acid substrates suggest that PcCAR4 possessed a more pronounced substrate specificity compared to previously reported CARs, preferring to reduce sterically-rigid carboxylic acids such as benzoic acid. These findings thus present a new functionally-distinct member of the CAR enzyme class.
A novel α-amylase was isolated successfully from Glaciozyma antarctica PI12 using DNA walking and reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) methods. The structure of this psychrophilic α-amylase (AmyPI12) from G. antarctica PI12 has yet to be studied in detail. A 3D model of AmyPI12 was built using a homology modelling approach to search for a suitable template and to generate an optimum target-template alignment, followed by model building using MODELLER9.9. Analysis of the AmyPI12 model revealed the presence of binding sites for a conserved calcium ion (CaI), non-conserved calcium ions (CaII and CaIII) and a sodium ion (Na). Compared with its template-the thermostable α-amylase from Bacillus stearothermophilus (BSTA)-the binding of CaII, CaIII and Na ions in AmyPI12 was observed to be looser, which suggests that the low stability of AmyPI12 allows the protein to work at different temperature scales. The AmyPI12 amino acid sequence and model were compared with thermophilic α-amylases from Bacillus species that provided the highest structural similarities with AmyPI12. These comparative studies will enable identification of possible determinants of cold adaptation.