Elastin-like polypeptides (ELPs) are biocompatible designer polypeptides with inverse temperature transition behavior in solution. They have a wide variety of possible applications and a potential medical importance. Currently, production of ELPs is done at lab scale in Escherichia coli shake flask cultures. With a view to future large scale production, we demonstrate secreted production of ELPs in methanol-induced fedbatch cultures of Pichia pastoris and purification directly from the culture medium. The production of ELPs by P. pastoris proved to be pH dependent within the experimental pH range of pH 3 to 7, as an increasing yield was found in cultures grown at higher pH. Because ELP produced at pH 7 was partly degraded, a pH optimum for production of ELP was found at pH 6 with a yield of 255 mg of purified intact ELP per liter of cell-free medium.

The alpha-galactosidase (AGA) from Bifidobacterium adolescentis DSM 20083 has a high transglycosylation activity. The optimal conditions for this activity are pH 8, and 37 degrees C. At high melibiose concentration (600 mM), approximately 64% of the enzyme-substrate encounters resulted in transglycosylation. Examination of the acceptor specificity showed that AGA required a hydroxyl group at C-6 for transglycosylation. Pentoses, hexuronic acids, deoxyhexoses, and alditols did not serve as acceptor molecules. Disaccharides were found to be good acceptors. A putative 3D-structure of the catalytic site of AGA was obtained by homology modeling. Based on this structure and amino acid sequence alignments, site-directed mutagenesis was performed to increase the transglycosylation efficiency of the enzyme, which resulted in four positive mutants. The positive single mutations were combined, resulting in six double mutants. The mutant H497M had an increase in transglycosylation of 16%, whereas most of the single mutations showed an increase of 2%-5% compared to the wild-type AGA. The double mutants G382C-Y500L, and H497M-Y500L had an increase in transglycosylation activity of 10%-16%, compared to the wild-type enzyme, whereas the increase for the other double mutants was low (4%-7%). The results show that with a single mutation (H497M) the transglycosylation efficiency can be increased from 64% to 75% of all enzyme-substrate encounters. Combining successful single mutants in double mutations did not necessarily result in an extra increase in transglycosylation efficiency. The donor and acceptor specificity did not change in the mutants, whereas the thermostability of the mutants with G382C decreased drastically.

Like natural tropoelastin, polypeptides based on an elastin-like VPGXG repeat have a characteristic inverse temperature response, which leads to coacervate formation above a certain transition temperature and which could be useful for a variety of applications. The key advantage of elastin-like polypeptides (ELPs) over (tropo)elastin is a full control over this temperature response by adjustment of either the amino acid composition or the chain length, according to insights provided by extensive research. Future application of ELPs will require efficient ELP production systems, and in a previous article, we described the successful use of Pichia pastoris for secreted production of an ELP, with an overall yield of ≈ 200 mg L(-1). In this study, we investigated the influence of changed amino acid composition and chain length on the yield of secreted ELP. We have found that both parameters have a distinct impact on the overall yield, with higher yield for shorter and more hydrophilic ELPs. Because yield and transition temperature (Tt) thus appear to be positively correlated, we hypothesize that good solubility of ELP below the Tt promotes the secreted production and coacervate formation above Tt decreases it.