Structural differences of commercial and recombinant lipase B from Candida antarctica: An important implication on enzymes thermostability

Lipase B from Candida antarctica (CalB) is the most widely used lipase, including in many industrial sectors, such as in biodiesel and pharmaceuticals production. CalB has been produced by heterologous expression using Pichia pastoris under PGK constitutive promoter (named LipB). Here, we have studied the structural features of commercial CalB and LipB enzymes using circular dichroism and fluorescence under different conditions. In the presence of denaturing agents CalB was more stable than LipB, in contrast, at increasing temperatures, LipB was more thermostable than CalB. Mass spectrometry data indicates that both enzymes have an insertion of amino acids related to alpha-factor yeast signal, however LipB enzyme showed the addition of nine residues at the N-terminal while CalB showed only four residues. Molecular modeling of LipS showed the formation of an amphipathic alpha-helix in N-terminal region that was not observed in CalB. This data suggests that this new alpha-helix possess could be involved in LipB thermostability. These results associated with new structural studies may provide information to the design of novel biocatalysts. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.