c Alginate lyases are important tools for oligosaccharide preparation, medical treatment, and energy bioconversion. Numerous alginate lyases have been elucidated. However, relatively little is known about their substrate degradation patterns and productyielding properties, which is a limit to wider enzymatic applications and further enzyme improvements. Herein, we report the characterization and module truncation of Aly5, the first alginate lyase obtained from the polysaccharide-degrading bacterium Flammeovirga. Aly5 is a 566-amino-acid protein and belongs to a novel branch of the polysaccharide lyase 7 (PL7) superfamily. The protein rAly5 is an endolytic enzyme of alginate and associated oligosaccharides. It prefers guluronate (G) to mannuronate (M). Its smallest substrate is an unsaturated pentasaccharide, and its minimum product is an unsaturated disaccharide. The final alginate digests contain unsaturated oligosaccharides that generally range from disaccharides to heptasaccharides, with the tetrasaccharide fraction constituting the highest mass concentration. The disaccharide products are identified as ⌬G units. While interestingly, the tri-and tetrasaccharide fractions each contain higher proportions of ⌬G to ⌬M ends, the larger final products contain only ⌬M ends, which constitute a novel oligosaccharide-yielding property of guluronate lyases. The deletion of the noncatalytic region of Aly5 does not alter its M/G preference but significantly decreases the enzymatic activity and enzyme stability. Notably, the truncated protein accumulates large final oligosaccharide products but yields fewer small final products than Aly5, which are codetermined by its M/G preference to and size enlargement of degradable oligosaccharides. This study provides novel enzymatic properties and catalytic mechanisms of a guluronate lyase for potential uses and improvements.A lginate is a linear polysaccharide composed of alternating residues of -D-mannuronic acid (M) and its C-5 epimer, ␣-Lguluronic acid (G) (1). The uronic acid residues are arranged into homopolyuronic blocks of M residues (M block), G residues (G block), or heteropolyuronic blocks (MG or GM blocks). Alginate has been identified as a cell wall component of seaweeds belonging to Phaeophyta, such as kelp and sargassum (2, 3). Due to its ability to form a strong gel after absorbing water, algal alginate has been widely used as a supporting material in food, medical, and industrial applications (4, 5). Alginates containing acetyl modifications at the O-2 or O-3 positions have been purified from the extracellular matrix of some bacteria, such as the pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Azotobacter soil bacteria (6, 7). Understanding how to prevent Pseudomonas pathogens from synthesizing and secreting extracellular high-molecular-weight alginates is important for clinical therapy protocols (8, 9).Alginate lyase can break the 1 to 4 O linkages between the uronic acid residues of alginate via a -elimination mechanism. The reaction forms C-4ϭC-5 double bonds within the s...