Expression, purification, and characterization of N-acetylglucosaminylphosphatidylinositol de-N-acetylase (ScGpi12), the enzyme that catalyses the second step of GPI biosynthesis in S. cerevisiae.

ScGpi12 is a 304 amino residue long endoplasmic reticulum membrane protein, which participates in the de-N-acetylation of N-acetylglucosaminyl phosphatidylinositol to produce glucosaminyl phosphatidylinositol in the second step of GPI anchor biosynthesis pathway in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. ScGpi12 was cloned in a pMAL-c2x vector and expressed heterologously in Rosetta-gami (DE3) strain of E. coli. Affinity purification of the protein yielded low amounts of the MBP-tagged enzyme, which was active. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first successful purification of full-length Gpi12 enzyme, without the accompanying GroEL that was seen in other studies. The presence of the tag did not greatly alter the activity of the enzyme. ScGpi12 was optimally active in the pH range of 6.5-8.5 and at 30 °C. It was not sensitive to treatment with EDTA but was stimulated by multiple divalent cations. The divalent cation did not alter the pH profile of the enzyme, suggesting no role of the divalent metal in creating a nucleophile for catalysis. Divalent cations did, however, enhance the turnover number of the enzyme for its substrate, suggesting that they are probably required for the production of a catalytically competent active site by bringing the active site residues within optimum distance of the substrate for catalysis.