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Cell-free biosystems comprised of synthetic enzymatic pathways would be a promising biomanufacturing platform due to several advantages, such as high product yield, fast reaction rate, easy control and access, and so on. However, it was essential to produce (purified) enzymes at low costs and stabilize them for a long time so to decrease biocatalyst costs. We studied the stability of the four recombinant enzyme mixtures, all of which originated from thermophilic microorganisms: triosephosphate isomerase (TIM) from Thermus thermophiles, fructose bisphosphate aldolase (ALD) from Thermotoga maritima, fructose bisphosphatase (FBP) from T. maritima, and phosphoglucose isomerase (PGI) from Clostridium thermocellum. It was found that TIM and ALD were very stable at evaluated temperature so that they were purified by heat precipitation followed by gradient ammonia sulfate precipitation. In contrast, PGI was not stable enough for heat treatment. In addition, the stability of a low concentration PGI was enhanced by more than 25 times in the presence of 20 mg/L bovine serum albumin or the other three enzymes. At a practical enzyme loading of 1000 U/L for each enzyme, the half-life time of free PGI was prolong to 433 h in the presence of the other three enzymes, resulting in a great increase in the total turn-over number of PGI to 6.2×10(9) mole of product per mole of enzyme. This study clearly suggested that the presence of other proteins had a strong synergetic effect on the stabilization of the thermolabile enzyme PGI due to in vitro macromolecular crowding effect. Also, this result could be used to explain why not all enzymes isolated from thermophilic microorganisms are stable in vitro because of a lack of the macromolecular crowding environment.

Apparent physical interaction between pea chloroplast (Pisum sativum L.) glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (EC 1.2.1.13) and aldolase (EC 4.1.2.13) is seen in phase-partitioning, fluorescent-anisotropy and isoelectric-focusing experiments. Similarly, results obtained in phase-partitioning and isoelectric-focusing experiments indicate physical interaction between aldolase and triose-phosphate isomerase (EC 5.3.1.1). Kinetic experiments suggest that both aldolase-bound glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate can act as substrate for glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase. These results are consistent with the notion that there is interaction between these three enzymes both during photosynthetic CO2 fixation and during glycolysis in the chloroplast.

A method is presented for the simultaneous purification of hexokinase, fructose-bisphosphate aldolase, triosephosphate isomerase and phosphoglycerate kinase, and the partial purification of glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (NAD+), 6-phosphofructokinase, glucosephosphate isomerase, and glycerol kinase from Trypanosoma brucei. As a first step, the glycosomes, microbody-like organelles of Trypanosomatidae, containing almost exclusively enzymes involved in glucose and glycerol metabolism [Opperdoes, F. R. and Borst, P. (1977) FEBS Lett. 80, 360-364], were purified eightfold from homogenates with an average yield of 38%. Subsequently, the glycosomal content was subjected to hydrophobic interaction chromatography on phenyl-Sepharose. This step results in pure hexokinase (15% final yield) and almost pure triosephosphate isomerase, while the other glycosomal enzymes elute as mixtures of two or three enzymes. Triosephosphate isomerase was further purified to homogeneity on CM-cellulose (33% final yield), while phosphoglycerate kinase and fructose-bisphosphate aldolase were separated from each other and purified to homogeneity by affinity chromatography using ATP-Sepharose (25% and 30% final yields, respectively). Fructose-bisphosphate aldolase was further characterized as a typical class I enzyme.

The present work describes procedures in which seven major muscle enzymes and serum albumin can be simultaneously isolated from chicken skeletal muscles. The seven enzymes isolated were: phosphorylase, enolase, creatine-P kinase, aldolase, glyceraldehyde-3-P dehydrogenase, phosphoglycerate mutase, and triose-P isomerase. The proteins isolated by these methods were judged to be greater than 97% pure on the basis of electrophoretic analysis in sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gels. The procedure is applicable for isolation of the enzymes from large (greater than 100 g) or small (less than 0.5 g) amounts of muscle tissue and the entire procedure can be completed within two days. Particularly useful features of the procedures are: (1) preferential solubilization of the enzymes from myofibrils by extraction of muscle specimens in solutions of different ionic strength; (2) specific precipitation of phosphorylase, creatine-P kinase, and glyceraldehyde 3-Phosphate dehydrogenase from solutions of specified pH and degrees of ammonium sulfate saturation; and (3) an alternate method for isolation of glyceraldehyde-3-P dehydrogenase by specific elution of the enzyme from phosphocellulose columns with ATP. Because of the ease, rapidity, and reproducibility of the procedures, these methods may be useful for the routine isolation of the muscle enzymes in studies on biochemical regulation, as well as for obtaining large quantitites of the enzymes for structural analysis.