Cloning, purification, crystallization and preliminary crystallographic analysis of acylphosphatase from Pyrococcus horikoshii OT3.

Acylphosphatase is one of the smallest enzymes and catalyzes the hydrolysis of the carboxy-phosphate bond. An extremely thermostable acylphosphatase from a hyperthermophilic archaea, Pyrococcus horikoshii OT3, has been cloned, expressed in Escherichia coli, purified and crystallized using the sitting-drop vapour-diffusion method with potassium/sodium tartrate as the precipitant at pH 5.5. X-ray diffraction data have been collected to a highest resolution of 1.72 angstroms on a synchrotron-radiation source. The crystals belong to space group P3(2)21, with approximate unit-cell parameters a = b = 86.6, c = 75.4 angstroms and two monomers in the asymmetric unit. Copyright 2004 International Union of Crystallography