Characterization of Alanine Dehydrogenase and Its Effect on Streptomyces coelicolorA3(2) Development in Liquid Culture.

Streptomyces, the most important group of industrial microorganisms, is harvested in liquid cultures for the production of two-thirds of all clinically relevant secondary metabolites. It is demonstrated here that the growth of Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2) is impacted by the deletion of the alanine dehydrogenase (ALD), an essential enzyme that plays a central role in the carbon and nitrogen metabolism. A long lag-phase growth followed by a slow exponential growth of S. coelicolor due to ALD gene deletion was observed in liquid yeast extract mineral salt culture. The slow lag-phase growth was replaced by the normal wild-type like growth by ALD complementation engineering. The ALD enzyme from S. coelicolor was also heterologously cloned and expressed in Escherichia coli for characterization. The optimum enzyme activity for the oxidative deamination reaction was found at 30°C, pH 9.5 with a catalytic efficiency, kcat/KM, of 2.0 ± 0.1 mM-1 s-1. The optimum enzyme activity for the reductive amination reaction was found at 30°C, pH 9.0 with a catalytic efficiency, kcat/KM, of 1.9 ± 0.1 mM-1 s-1.