Behavior of a series of fusion proteins of varying charge in reversed micellar extraction was studied. The proteins consisted of the enzyme glucoamylase from Aspergillus awamori joined to short peptides containing from 0-10 additional aspartate residues. The fusions were partitioned into two different cationic surfactant systems, one based on the surfactant trioctylmethylammonium chloride (TOMAC) and the other on cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB). These two systems differed chiefly in micelle size as measured by the water to surfactant ratio, wo. Water numbers were determined for the TOMAC system, with values of approximately 10, and as a function of pH and ionic strength for CTAB for each of the mutant enzymes. For the CTAB system, water numbers were as low as 50 with NaCl concentrations of 500 mM and as high as 68 at 300 mM NaCl (95% confidence level of 2.4). The enzyme partitioned most strongly using CTAB, with maximal recoveries approaching 95%. However, in the CTAB system, there were no significant differences in behavior between the mutants because of the relatively large micellar size, even under high salt concentrations. Extraction of the control enzyme from clarified cell broth indicated that broth components did not significantly interfere with partitioning.

We have investigated the use of charged fusion tails with the enzyme glucoamylase in reversed micellar extraction. The addition of the charged tails increased the fraction of enzymatically active protein recovered at a given pH, with the tails containing the largest number of charges being recovered at the highest level. The series of mutations also allows for investigation of the charge-dependent behavior of reversed micellar extraction. However, in this case, the change in protein charge via fusions had a lesser impact than did the change in charge via a pH change. The difference may be due to the difficulty of partitioning the hydrodynamically larger fusion protein.