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Articles

Structure of Plant Cell Walls

IX. Purification and Partial Characterization of a Wall-degrading Endo-Arabanase and an Arabinosidase from Bacillus subtilis¹

^a Department of Chemistry, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309

Wild type Bacillus subtilis, when grown on beet araban, secretes into its culture medium an endo-arabanase and two arabinosidases. An alternate procedure to one previously described (Kaji A, T Saheki 1975 Biochim Biophys Acta 410: 354-360) has been developed for the purification of the endo-arabanase. The purified endo-arabanase is shown to be homogeneous by sodium dodecyl sulfate-urea disc gel electrophoresis (molecular weight 32,000) and by isoelectric focusing (pI = 9.3). The endo-arabanase, acting on a branched araban substrate, has maximal activity at pH 6.0 and preferentially cleaves 5-linked arabinosyl residues. One of the arabinosidases (molecular weight 65,000, pI = 5.3) has been purified to the point that it contains only one quantitatively minor contaminant, as shown by sodium dodecyl sulfate-urea disc gel electrophoresis and isoelectric focusing. The purified arabinosidase, acting on p-nitrophenyl--L-arabinofuranoside, has maximal activity at pH 6.5, and, when acting on a branched araban substrate, preferentially attacks nonreducing terminal arabinosyl residues linked to the 2 or 3 position of other arabinosyl residues. Neither of the two purified enzymes is capable of hydrolyzing a variety of carbohydrate substrates which lack arabinosidic linkages. The purified endo-arabinase is shown to be capable of releasing arabinosyl oligomers from the walls of suspension-cultured sycamore cells, thereby suggesting its usefulness as a probe in studying the structure of the araban component of primary cell walls.

¹ Supported in part by Department of Energy Contract EY-76-S-02-1426.