Clostridium thermocellum thermostable lichenase with circular permutations and modifications in the N-terminal region retains its activity and thermostability.

The Clostridium thermocellum lichenase (endo-β-1,3;1,4-glucan-D-glycosyl hydrolase) displays a high thermostability and specific activity and has a compact protein molecule, which makes it attractive, in particular, for protein engineering. We have utilized in silico analysis to construct circularly permuted (CP) variants and estimated the retained activity and thermostability. New open termini in the region of residues 53 or 99 in two lichenase CP variants (CN-53 and CN-99) had no effect on their activity and thermal tolerance versus another variant CP variant, CN-140 (cut in the region of residue 140), which displayed a dramatic decrease in the activity and thermostability.