Evolution of a dextransucrase gene for constitutive and hyper-production and for synthesis of new structure dextran

After irradiation of a cloned dextransucrase gene (dsrB742) with ultrasoft X-ray, an E. coli transformant (pDSRB742CK) was first developed for the expression of an extracellular dextransucrase, having increased activity and the synthesis of a highly branched dextran. Seven nucleotides of the parent gene (dsrB742) were changed in the nucleotide sequences of dsrB742ck. Among them, four nucleotides were changed at the ORF of dsrB742, resulting in a 30 amino acids deletion in the N-terminal of DSRB742 dextransucrase. The activity of DSRB742CK dextransucrase in culture supernatant was approximately 2.6 times higher (0.035 IU/ml) than that of the DSRB742 clone. The pDSRB742CK clone produced DSRB742CK dextransucrase when grown both on a sucrose medium (inducibly) and on a glucose medium (constitutively). The DSRB742 clone did not produce dextran constitutively on a glucose medium. DSRB742CK dextran had 15.6% branching and 2.7-times higher resistance to dextranase hydrolysis compared to DSRB742 dextran. $^{13}C-NMR$ showed that DSRB742CK dextran contained ${\alpha}-(1{\rightarrow}3)$ branch linkages that were not present in DSRB742 dextran.