MIT, United States.
Sulfated polysaccharides such as heparin and heparan sulfate glycosaminoglycans (HSGAGs) are chemically and structurally heterogeneous biopolymers that that function as key regulators of numerous biological functions. The elucidation of HSGAG fine structure is fundamental to understanding their functional diversity and this is facilitated by the use of select degrading enzymes of defined substrate specificity. Our previous studies have reported the cloning, characterization, recombinant expression and structure-function analysis in Escherichia coli of the Flavobacterium heparinum 2-O-sulfatase and 6-O-sulfatase enzymes that cleave the O-sulfate groups from specific locations of the HSGAG polymer. Building on these preceding studies, we report here the molecular cloning, recombinant expression in E. coli of an N-sulfamidase, specific for HSGAGs.