Purification and Substrate Specificity of Sweet Corn α-Glucosidase

Abstract

An α-glucosidase was purified from sweet corn seeds by fractionation with ammonium sulfate, chromatographies on CM-Sepharose and Sepharose 4B, and gel filtrations on Sephadex G-100. The enzyme was homogeneous in disc electrophoretic analysis. The molecular weight was estimated to be about 9.6×10⁴ by SDS-disc electrophoresis.
The enzyme showed high activities toward maltose, nigerose, phenyl-α-maltoside, and maltooligosaccharides. The ratios of maximum velocity for maltose, nigerose, kojibiose, isomaltose, phenyl-α-glucoside, phenyl-α-maltoside, panose, turanose, and soluble starch were estimated to be 100: 78 : 17: 11 : 28 : 100 : 31 : 3.4 : 126, and the Km values for these substrates, 1.5 mM, 1.4 mM, 0.48 mM, 14 mM, 4.2 mM, 1.1 mM, 5.0 mM, 0.28 mM and 52 mg/ml, respectively. The maximum velocity for soluble starch was high, but this α-glucan was not a favorable substrate because the Km value was also very high. The V_max for maltooligosaccharides were somewhat dependent on the degree of polymerization (n). The Km values for substrates having four or more glucose units increased with the increase in n.