OPTIMIZING THE PRODUCTION OF A FUNCTIONAL TYPE A RECOMBINANT ENDOCHITINASE FROM Trichoderma asperellum IN Escherichia coli

Chitinases from the genus Trichoderma fungi are mainly responsible for their anti-fungal activities, which allow them to become the most widely used fungal biocontrol. Therefore, several Trichoderma chitinases have been cloned and expressed to facilitate their production and applications. A previous study of the same authors has characterized an endochitinase from a relatively novel Trichoderma spp., Trichoderma asperellum. To produce this enzyme more economically and efficiently, we reported the synthesis and expression of its synthetic encoding gene in the Escherichia coli M15 strain and established the optimal conditions for preparative scale production of the enzyme in its functional form. By lowering the induction temperatures, we observed substantial improvement in the expression levels of the active enzyme.  At 30 oC and 0.5 mM IPTG induction, 1 L of cells yielded approximately 80 - 100 mg of soluble protein, accounting for about 9-11 % of total soluble protein. This figure may be an underestimation of the actual yield, as deduced from the SDS-PAGE data. The recombinant enzyme can be retrieved by simple repeated freezing and thawing cycles and purified to near homogeneity using Ni-NTA chromatography. The purified enzyme showed in vitro colloidal chitin hydrolysis activity. These results could be scaled up to produce soluble 42 kDa chitinase in E. coli. The study demonstrated an economical method to produce chitinases for various agricultural and environmental applications.