Comparative studies on glucoamylases from three fungal sources

Five commercial preparations of glucoamylases (three from Aspergillus niger, one each from Aspergillus foetidus and Aspergillus candidus) were purified by ultrafiltration, Sepharose-gel filtration and DEAE-sephadex chromatography. Two forms of the enzyme, namely glucoamylase I and glucoamylase II were obtained from the fungi except from one strain of A. Niger. All the enzymes appeared homogeneous by electrophoresis and ultracentrifugation. The specific activities varied between 85 and 142 units. The pH and temperature optima were between 4 and 5, and 60°C respectively. The molecular weight as determined by the sodium dodecyl sulphate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis ranged from 75,000 to 79,000 for glucoamylase I and 60,000 to 72,000 for glucoamylase II. Only A. niger glucoamylases contained phenylalanine at the N-terminal end. The amino acid composition of the enzymes was generally similar. However, A. niger and A. foetidus glucoamylases, in contrast to A. candidus enzymes, contained greater percentage of acidic than of basic amino acids. The enzymes contained 15 to 30% carbohydrate and 49 to 57 residues of monosaccharides per mol. A. niger enzymes contained mannose, glucose, galactose, xylose and glucosamine but the A. candidus enzyme lacked xylose and glucose and only xylose was absent in A, foetidus enzymes. Majority of the carbohydrate moieties were O-glycosidically linked through mannose to the hydroxyl groups of seline and threonine of the polypeptide chain