Directly mining a fungal thermostable α-amylase from Chinese Nong-flavor liquor starter

BACKGROUND: Chinese Nong-flavor (NF) liquor is continuously and stably produced by solid-state fermentation technology for 1000 years, resulting in enrichment of special microbial community and enzymes system in its starter. Based on traditional culture-dependent methods, these functional enzymes are hardly obtained. According to our previous metatranscriptomic analysis, which identifies plenty of thermostable carbohydrate-active enzymes in NF liquor starter, the aim of this study is to provide a direct and efficient way to mine these thermostable enzymes. RESULTS: In present study, an alpha-amylase (NFAmy13A) gene, which showed the highest expression level of enzymes in starch degradation at high temperature stage (62 °C), was directly obtained by functional metatranscriptomics from Chinese Nong-flavor liquor starter and expressed in Pichia pastoris. NFAmy13A had a typical signal peptide and shared the highest sequence identity of 64% with α-amylase from Aspergillus niger. The recombinant enzyme of NFAmy13A showed an optimal pH at 5.0–5.5 and optimal temperature at 60 °C. NFAmy13A was activated and stabilized by Ca(2+), and its half-lives at 60 and 70 °C were improved significantly from 1.5 and 0.4 h to 16 and 0.7 h, respectively, in the presence of 10 mM CaCl(2). Meanwhile, Hg(2+), Co(2+) and SDS largely inhibited its activity. NFAmy13A showed the maximum activity on amylopectin, followed by various starches, amylose, glycogen, and pullulan, and its specificity activity on amylopectin was 200.4 U/mg. Moreover, this α-amylase efficiently hydrolyzed starches (from corn, wheat, and potato) at high concentrations up to 15 mg/ml. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides a direct way to mine active enzymes from man-made environment of NF liquor starter, by which a fungal thermostable α-amylase (NFAmy13A) is successfully obtained. The good characteristics of NFAmy13A in degrading starch at high temperature are consistent with its pivotal role in solid-state fermentation of NF liquor brewing. This work would stimulate mining more enzymes from NF liquor starter and studying their potentially synergistic roles in NF liquor brewing, thus paving the way toward the optimization of liquor production and improvement of liquor quality in future. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12934-018-0878-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.