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Updated: Aug 3, 2026
Identifying Amino Acid Overproducers Using Rare-Codon-Rich Markers
Published on: June 24, 2019
Identification and functional characterization of levS, a gene encoding for a levansucrase from Leuconostoc
Sandra Morales-Arrieta1, Maria Elena Rodríguez, Lorenzo Segovia
1Departamento de Ingeniería Celular y Biocatálisis, Instituto de Biotecnología, UNAM, Avenida Universidad 2001, Col. Chamilpa, Cuernavaca, Morelos 62250, México.
Abstract:
A Leuconostoc mesenteroides NRRL B-512 F levansucrase gene, (levS), was isolated, sequenced and cloned in Escherichia coli. The recombinant enzyme was shown to be a fructosyltransferase producing a polymer identified by (13)C-NMR as levan. Based on sequence analysis, we found that this levansucrase is a mosaic protein, bearing structural features of glucosyltransferases in the amino and carboxy terminal regions similarly to inulosucrase from Leuconostoc citreum. The phylogenetic analysis of the C-terminal region domain of levansucrases from L. mesenteroides demonstrates that they group together into a novel putative sub-family of genes and evolved long before all other glucosyltransferases, while their catalytic domain structure is species related.
