Primary structure and processing of the Candida tsukubaensis α‐glucosidase

The nucleotide sequence of a 4.39‐kb DNA fragment encoding the α‐glucosidase gene of Candida tsukubaensis is reported. The cloned gene contains a major open reading frame (ORF 1) which encodes the α‐glucosidase as a single precursor polypeptide of 1070 amino acids with a predicted molecular mass of 119 kDa. N‐terminal amino acid sequence analysis of the individual subunits of the purified enzyme, expressed in the recombinant host Saccharomyces cerevisiae , confirmed that the α‐glucosidase precursor is proteolytically processed by removal of an N‐terminal signal peptide to yield the two peptide subunits 1 and 2, of molecular masses 63–65 kDa and 50–52 kDa, respectively. Both subunits are secreted by the heterologous host S. cerevisiae in a glycosylated form. Coincident with its efficient expresion in the heterologus host, the C. tsukubaensis α‐glucosidase gene contains many of the canonical features of highly expressed S. cerevisiae genes. There is considerable sequence similarity between C. tsukubaensis α‐glucosidase, the rabbit sucrase‐isomaltase complex (proSI) and human lysosomal acid α‐glucosidase. The cloned DNA fragment from C. tsukubaensis contains a second open reading frame (ORF 2) which has the capacity to encode a polypeptide of 170 amino acids. The function and identity of the polypeptide encoded by ORF 2 is not known.