Purification and substrate specificity of honeybee, Apis mellifera L., α-glucosidase III

alpha -Glucosidase III, which was different in substrate specificity from honeybee alpha -glucosidases I and II, was purified as an electrophoretically homogeneous protein from honeybees, by salting-out chromatography, DEAE-cellulose, DEAE-Sepharose CL-6B, Bio-Gel P-150, and CM-Toyopearl 650M column chromatographies. The enzyme preparation was confirmed to be a monomeric protein and a glycoprotein containing about 7.4% of carbohydrate. The molecular weight was estimated to approximately 68,000, and the optimum pH was 5.5. The substrate specificity of alpha -glucosidase III was kinetically investigated. The enzyme did not show unusual kinetics, such as the allosteric behaviors observed in alpha -glucosidases I and II, which are monomeric proteins. The enzyme was characterized by the ability to rapidly hydrolyze sucrose, phenyl alpha -glucoside, maltose, and maltotriose, and by extremely high K-m for substrates, compared with those of alpha -glucosidases I and II. Especially, maltotriose was hydrolyzed over 3 times as rapidly as maltose. However, maltooligosaccharides of four or more in the degree of polymerization were slowly degraded. The relative rates of the k(o) values for maltose, sucrose, p-nitrophenyl alpha -glucoside and maltotriose were estimated to be 100, 527, 281 and 364, and the K-m values for these substrates, 11, 30, 13, and 10 mm, respectively. The subsite affinities (A(i)'s) in the active site were tentatively evaluated from the rate parameters for maltooligosaccharides. In this enzyme, it was peculiar that the A(i) value at subsite 3 was larger than that of subsite 1.