Cloning, purification, crystallization and preliminary structural studies of penicillin V acylase from Bacillus subtilis

An unannotated protein reported from B. subtilis has been expressed in E. coli and identified as possessing penicillin V acylase activity. The crystallization and preliminary crystallographic analysis of this penicillin V acylase is presented. Penicillin acylase proteins are amidohydrolase enzymes that cleave penicillins at the amide bond connecting the side chain to their β-lactam nucleus. An unannotated protein from Bacillus subtilis has been expressed in Escherichia coli, purified and confirmed to possess penicillin V acylase activity. The protein was crystallized using the hanging-drop vapour-diffusion method from a solution containing 4 M sodium formate in 100 mM Tris–HCl buffer pH 8.2. Diffraction data were collected under cryogenic conditions to a spacing of 2.5 Å. The crystals belonged to the orthorhombic space group C222₁, with unit-cell parameters a = 111.0, b = 308.0, c = 56.0 Å. The estimated Matthews coefficient was 3.23 ų Da⁻¹, corresponding to 62% solvent content. The structure has been solved using molecular-replacement methods with B. sphaericus penicillin V acylase (PDB code 2pva) as the search model