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Updated: Oct 5, 2026

Adaptation at the Extremes of Life: Experimental Evolution with the Extremophile Archaeon Sulfolobus acidocaldarius
Published on: June 14, 2024
Molecular and biochemical characterization of the recombinant amidase from hyperthermophilic archaeon Sulfolobus
A Scotto d'Abusco1, S Ammendola, R Scandurra
1Dipartimento di Scienze Biochimiche, Università La Sapienza, Roma, Italy.
Abstract:
We have cloned, sequenced, and overexpressed in Escherichia coli the amidase gene from the hyperthermophilic archaeon Sulfolobus solfataricus (strain MT4). The recombinant thermophilic protein was expressed as a fusion protein with an N-terminus six-histidine-residue affinity tag. The enzyme, the first characterized archaeal amidase, is a monomer of 55,784 daltons, enantioselective, and active on 2- to 6-carbon aliphatic amides and on many aromatic amides, over the pH range 4-9 and at temperatures from 60 degrees to 95 degrees C. The S. solfataricus amidase belongs to the class of amidases that share a characteristic signature, GGSS(S/ G)GS, located in the central region of the protein, and which show remarkable variability in their individual substrate specificities, can hydrolyze aliphatic or aromatic substrates, and share a large invariance of their primary structure.
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