Alanine 310 is important for the activity of 1,4-α-glucan branching enzyme from Geobacillus thermoglucosidans STB02.

1,4-α-Glucan branching enzyme (GBE) catalyzes the formation of α-1,6 branch points in starch or glycogen by hydrolyzing α-1,4-glucosidic linkages and then synthesizing α-1,6-glucosidic linkages. In the GBE from Geobacillus thermoglucosidans STB02, alanine 310 (Ala310) is located in conserved region II. An analysis of the amino acid sequence shows that Ala310 is highly conserved in the prokaryotic GBE subfamily. Site-directed mutagenesis was used to determine the function of Ala310 in GBE. Replacement of Ala310 with glycine, aspartate, asparagine, isoleucine, glutamate, or glutamine resulted in mutant enzymes with less than 10% to 25% of wild-type activity when amylopectin or amylose was used as substrate. Studies using high-performance anion exchange chromatography with pulsed amperometric detection (HPAEC-PAD) showed that A310G mutant had no effect on the transfer pattern, but the branching activity had been repressed to a large extent. Kinetic analysis also showed that mutations of Ala310 had an effect on the KM value that changed the preferred substrate from amylopectin to amylose. These results show that Ala310 is important for the catalytic activity of the GBE from G. thermoglucosidans STB02.