Purification, characterization, and anticancer and antioxidant activities of L-glutaminase from Aspergillus...

L-Glutaminase is an amidohydrolase which can act as a vital chemotherapeutic agent against various malignancies. In the present work, L-glutaminase productivity from Aspergillus versicolor Faesay4 was significantly increased by 7.72-fold (from 12.33 ± 0.47 to 95.15 ± 0.89 U/mL) by optimizing submerged fermentation parameters in Czapek's Dox (CZD) medium including an incubation period from 3 (12.33 ± 0.47 U/mL) to 6 days (23.36 ± 0.58 U/mL), an incubation temperature from 30 °C (23.36 ± 0.49 U/mL) to 25 °C (31.08 ± 0.60 U/mL), initial pH from pH 5.0 (8.49 ± 0.21 U/mL)  to pH 7.0 (32.18 ± 0.57 U/mL), replacement of glucose (30.19 ± 0.52 U/mL) by sucrose (48.97 ± 0.67 U/mL) as the carbon source at a concentration of 2.0% (w/v), increasing glutamine concentration as the nitrogen source from 1.0% (w/v, 48.54 ± 0.48 U/mL) to 1.5% (w/v, 63.01 ± 0.60 U/mL), and addition of a mixture of KH₂PO₄ and NaCl (0.5% w/v for both) to SZD as the metal supplementation (95.15 ± 0.89 U/mL). Faesay4 L-glutaminase was purified to yield total activity 13,160 ± 22.76 (U), specific activity 398.79 ± 9.81 (U/mg of protein), and purification fold 2.1 ± 3.18 with final enzyme recovery 57.22 ± 2.17%. The pure enzyme showed a molecular weight of 61.80 kDa, and it was stable and retained 100.0% of its activity at a temperature ranged from 10 to 40 °C and pH 7.0. In our trials, to increase the enzyme activity by optimizing the assay conditions (which were temperature 60 °C, pH 7.0, substrate glutamine, substrate concentration 1.0%, and reaction time 60 min), the enzyme activity increased by 358.8% after changing the assay temperature from 60 to 30 °C and then increased by 138% after decreasing the reaction time from 60 to 40 min. However, both pH 7.0 and glutamine as the substrate remain the best assay parameters for the L-glutaminase activity. When the glutamine in the assay as the reaction substrate was replaced by asparagine, lysine, proline, methionine, cysteine, glycine, valine, phenylalanine, L-alanine, aspartic acid, tyrosine, and serine, the enzyme lost 23.86%, 29.0%, 31.0%, 48.3%, 50.0%, 73.6%, 74.51%, 80.42%, 82.5%, 83.43%, 88.36%, and 89.78% of its activity with glutamine, respectively. Furthermore, Mn²⁺, K⁺, Na⁺, and Fe³⁺ were enzymatic activators that increased the L-glutaminase activity by 25.0%, 18.05%, 10.97%, and 8.0%, respectively. Faesay4 L-glutaminase was characterized as a serine protease enzyme as a result of complete inhibition by all serine protease inhibitors (PMSF, benzamidine, and TLCK). Purified L-glutaminase isolated from Aspergillus versicolor Faesay4 showed potent DPPH scavenging activities with IC₅₀ = 50 μg/mL and anticancer activities against human liver (HepG-2), colon (HCT-116), breast (MCF-7), lung (A-549), and cervical (Hela) cancer cell lines with IC₅₀ 39.61, 12.8, 6.18, 11.48, and 7.25 μg/mL, respectively.