Cloning of a cDNA encoding cellobiose dehydrogenase, a hemoflavoenzyme from Phanerochaete chrysosporium

Cellobiose dehydrogenase (CDH) is an extracellular hemoflavoenzyme produced by cellulose-degrading cultures of the wood-degrading basidiomycete Phanerochaete chrysosporium. CDH contains one flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD) and one heme b per molecule, and it oxidizes cellobiose to cellobionolactone. In this report, a 2.4-kb cDNA encoding CDH was isolated by screening an expression library of P. chrysosporium OGC101 with a CDH-specific polyclonal antibody. The cDNA encodes a 755-amino-acid protein with a predicted mass of 80,115 Da. Sequence analysis suggests that the heme domain is located at the N terminus and that the falvin domain is located at the C terminus. The flavin domain shows a beta 1-alpha A-beta 2 motif for FAD binding and has high sequence similarity to several FAD-dependent enzymes. Little sequence similarity to hemoflavoenzymes is found. CDH binds to cellulose similarly to cellulases. However, little sequence similarity is observed with the conserved cellulose-binding sequences of cellulases. This suggests that CDH might possess a specific sequence for cellulose binding which is different from that of cellulases. Northern (RNA) blot analysis of total RNA from cellulose-, glucose-, and cellobiose-grown P. chrysosporium indicated that CDH mRNA is produced only in cellulose-grown cells. This suggests that CDH expression is regulated at the transcriptional level by either cellulose or one of its degradation products. Southern blot analysis suggests the presence of only a single gene for CDH in P. chrysosporium OGC101.