The data of the turbidimetric measurement for the enzymatic lysis of various living bacterial cells are analyzed. A method for the correct recalculation of the turbidimetric data (–Δ A /Δ t ) into absolute values of the change in the concentration of living cells (–ΔCFU/Δ t ) is proposed. The dimensionless efficiency of cell lysis–(1/CFU 0 ) · ΔCFU/Δ t for various bacterial cells is calculated to correctly compare the efficiency of the action of different bacteriolytic factors on various bacterial cells.

The bacteriolytic activity of interleukin-2 and chicken egg lysozyme in the presence of various substances has been studied. Glycine and lysine do not affect the activity of interleukin-2 but increase that of lysozyme, showing a bell-shape concentration dependence peaking at 1.5 mM glycine and 18 mM lysine. Arginine and glutamate activate both interleukin-2 and lysozyme with a concentration dependence of the saturation type. Aromatic amino acids have almost no effect on the activity of both interleukin-2 and lysozyme. Aromatic amines, tryptamine, and tyramine activate interleukin-2 but inhibit lysozyme. Peptide antibiotics affect interleukin and lysozyme similarly and exhibit maximum activity in the micromolar range of antibiotics. Taurine has no effect on the activity of interleukin-2 and lysozyme. Mildronate showed no influence on lysozyme, but it activated interleukin-2 with the activity maximum at 3 mM. EDTA activates both interleukin-2 and lysozyme at concentrations above 0.15 mM.

The bacteriolytic activity of interleukin-2 and hen egg white lysozyme against 34 different species of microorganisms has been studied. It was found that 6 species of microorganisms are lysed in the presence of interleukin-2. All interleukin-2-sensitive microorganisms belong either to the Enterobacteriaceae, Bacillaceae, or the Lactobacillaceae family. It was also found that 12 species of microorganisms are lysed in the presence of lysozyme, and 16 species of microorganisms are lysed in the presence of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS). The bacteriolytic activity of interleukin-2 and lysozyme was studied at various pH values.

A turbidimetric method for determining the activity of bacteriolytic enzymes against living Lactobacillus plantarum cells as a substrate is developed. A technique for measuring the sorption of an enzyme on living cells in an experiment for activity determination is described, with chicken egg lysozyme being used as a standard model enzyme. The correctness of the calculations of the kinetic parameters is proved by counting the colony-forming units (CFUs). The physical and chemical parameters of the sorption of the enzyme on the cells are calculated and the correctness of the obtained equilibrium desorption constants is confirmed.

The article continues studies of the recently discovered bacteriolytic activity of interleukin-2. It was detected earlier that interleukin (IL-2) possesses greater substrate specificity in comparison with chicken egg lysozyme. IL-2 disrupted the cell wall of Escherichia coli but did not lyse lysozyme substrates such as the cell walls of Micrococcus luteus and Bacillus subtilis . In the present study it is demonstrated for the first time that both IL-2 and chicken egg lysozyme are capable of lysing Lactobacillus plantarum . The effects of IL-2 and chicken egg lysozyme on Lactobacillus plantarum are compared with those on Escherichia coli . The dependences of the rate of lysis on the concentration of bacteriolytic factors and pH are studied.

Bacteriolytic factors from the blood plasma of healthy sheep have been studied. Three enzymes not described earlier in the literature have been identified and characterized. Two enzymes exhibit activity toward Escherichia coli and have molecular weights of 15 ± 2 kDa. The third enzyme that exhibits activity toward E. coli and Micrococcus luteus has a molecular weight of 34 ± 4 kDa. The kinetic parameters of bacterial lysis for all enzymes have been determined; in particular, optimal pH values for each of the substrates used have been found. For the identification of the enzymes, trypsinolysis and a mass-spectroscopic study of fragments have been carried out. The results were compared with the data on sheep proteins available in the Swiss-Prot, NCBI, and MSDB databases.

In this paper we report the discovery of bacteriolytic activity of an immune system cytokine mediator, interleukin-2. Bacteriolytic activity of interleukin-2 was compared with a well-known bacteriolytic enzyme — chicken egg white lysozyme — by monitoring the lysis of the Gram-negative bacterium Escherichia coli, the Gram-positive coccus Micrococcus luteus, and the Gram-positive spore-forming bacillus Bacillus subtilis. It was found that interleukin-2 has greater specificity to the Gram-negative bacterium E. coli than does lysozyme. In contrast to chicken egg white lysozyme, interleukin-2 does not lyse the Gram-positive coccus M. luteus and the Gram-positive spore-forming bacillus B. subtilis. These results give a new understanding of the biological functions of interleukin-2, a regulatory protein that plays a role in oncological and infectious diseases.

The key factors of enzymatic lysis of cells are the interaction between the enzyme and the cell – catalytic and non-catalytic adsorption of enzyme on cell surface. Here, the studies of lysis of intact Escherichia coli cells by chicken egg white lysozyme were performed. It was found that the ionic strength has a dual effect onto the system. On the one hand, the desorption constant of the enzyme increases with the increase of the solution ionic strength, which results in a better enzyme performance. On the other hand, due to the higher osmosis, the cell lysis rate decreases with the increasing of ionic strength of the system. It was found that pH 8.6 and 30mM NaCl are optimal conditions for lysis of E. coli cells by lysozyme.

Reverse micelles system is suggested as a direct tool to study the influence of membrane matrix composition on the activity and structure of membrane-associated enzymes with the use of acid phosphatase (AP) as an example. In reverse micelles the functioning of the monomeric and dimeric forms of AP could be separately observed by variation of the size of the micelles. We found that including the lipids into the micellar system can dramatically affect the enzyme functioning even at low lipid content (2% w/w), and this effect depends on the lipid nature. Structural studies using CD spectroscopy and DLS methods have shown that the influence of lipid composition on the enzyme properties might be caused by the interaction of lipids with the enzyme as well as by the influence of lipids on structure and properties of the micellar matrix.

Исследованы препараты бактериолитических фаговых ферментов экзолизина и эндолизина. Экзолизин (фагассоциированный фермент) получен из хвостовой фракции частиц фага, эндолизин - из бесфаговой цитоплазматической фракции разрушенных клеток Salmonella enteritidis. Разработана методика очистки данных ферментов и измерены их молекулярные массы. Обнаружено, что основные каталитические свойства исследуемых ферментов (оптимальное для активности значение рН и специфичность по бактериальным субстратам) сходны. Оба фермента эффективно лизируют клетки Escherichia coli аналогично куриному яичному лизоциму, но намного эффективнее его при лизисе клеток S. enteritidis и не эффективны при лизисе Micrococcus luteus - хорошего субстрата для лизоцима. Ввиду выявленного сходства характеристик экзолизина и эндолизина не исключено, что данные ферменты близки или даже идентичны по структуре.

Bacteriophage enzyme preparations exolysin and endolysin were studied. Exolysin (a phage-associated enzyme) was obtained from tail fraction and endolysin from phage-free cytoplasmic fraction of disintegrated Salmonella enteritidis cells. A new method for purification of these enzymes was developed, and their molecular masses were determined. The main catalytic properties of the studied enzymes (pH optimum and specificity to bacterial substrates) were found to be similar. Both enzymes lyse Escherichia coli cells like chicken egg lysozyme, but more efficiently lyse S. enteritidis cells and cannot lyse Micrococcus luteus, a good substrate for chicken egg lysozyme. Similar properties of exolysin and endolysin suggest that these enzymes are structurally similar or even identical.

The possibilities of bacteriophage SPZ7 endolysin functioning in the lysis of gram-negative bacteria “from without” were studied. A significant 1.5–3-fold increase in bacteriophage SPZ7 endolysin activity during the lysis of S. enteritidis N60 and E. coli TG1 cells in the presence of high-molecular surfactants, pluronics with a large hydrophobic block, hen’s egg lysozyme, and low concentrations of a peptide antibiotic (colistin), was shown. The developed approach may be promising for improving the efficiency of pharmaceutical bacteriophage enzyme-based antibacterials working against gram-negative microorganisms.

The influence of biomembrane lipids on the catalytic activity of a peripheral membrane enzyme, acid phosphatase (AP), was studied in a reverse micellar system. It was found that the interaction of AP with lipids led to a number of kinetic effects depending on lipid nature on enzyme function. The observed effects might be caused by the formation of lipoprotein complexes as well as by the influence of lipids on structure and properties of the micellar matrix. The results are important for clear understanding of molecular mechanisms of regulation of the catalytic activity of the membrane-associated enzyme in vivo. These data can also be used as a physicochemical basis for application of AP in medical fields as a diagnostic tool for diseases caused by changes in lipid metabolism, e.g. urinary, orthopedic, and allergic diseases.

An effective approach to the stabilization of hydrolytic enzymes (alkaline proteinase and cellulases) via the complex formation with chitosan for their further use as detergent components has been developed. Interaction with chitosan results in a 35–50% increase in the level of catalytic activity of the enzymes after incubation for 60 min under the conditions of detergent use (alkaline pH, increased temperature, the presence of anionic surfactants) as compared to the system in the absence of chitosan both due to the enzyme stabilization and the increase of the starting level of catalytic activity. A twofold decrease of the enzyme inactivation constant is observed under the aforementioned conditions in the case of alkaline proteinase. In the case of cellulase preparation, the method for the control of the concentration of the active enzyme in the system modeling synthetic detergents has been suggested. The method is based on the enzymatic destruction of the stabilizing agent, chitosan, by enzymes of the cellulase complex. The destruction of chitosan removed the stabilizing effect, thus resulting in the inactivation of cellulases. The developed approaches allow for the widening of the field of the possible application of enzymes as detergent components.

This work studies safflower oil hydrolysis catalyzed by Candida rugosa lipase as a function of temperature in an oil-in-water emulsion stabilized by the surfactant sodium deoxycholate. The choice of temperature for this reaction is dictated by the effects of temperature not only on the catalytic activity and stability of the enzyme but also on the state of the reaction medium (emulsion), whose quality substantially affects both the kinetic parameters of lipase and the product (linoleic acid) yield. For example, although the highest initial rate of the enzymatic reaction is observed at 40°C and the enzyme is virtually not inactivated during incubation (45°C), the highest reaction yield is observed at 30°C and decreases upon temperature elevation because of a change in the emulsion quality.

The effect of various compounds on the activity and stability of a phage-associated enzyme lysing cells of streptococci of groups A and C (PlyC) was investigated. Substantial inhibition of the enzyme activity was revealed at an increased ionic strength (in the presence of NaCl) and upon the addition of carbohydrates (mono-, di-, and polysaccharides), i.e., agents stabilizing many enzymes. It was established that the enzyme activity was substantially reduced in the presence of positively charged polyelectrolytes and surfactants, whereas incubation with micelle-forming substances and negatively charged polyelectrolytes led to PlyC activation and stabilization. It was shown that, in the micellar polyelectrolyte composition M16, the enzyme retained its activity for 2 months; while in a buffer solution under the same conditions (pH 6.3, room temperature), ture), it practically completely lost its activity in 2 days. Characteristics of the enzyme thermal inactivation were found, in particular, its half-inactivation time at various temperatures; these allowed us to estimate its behavior at any temperature and to recommend conditions for its storage and use.