An Unusual Pectate Lyase with Noticeable Effects on the Chinese Medicinal Herb Extract: Cloning and Characterization

Pectate lyase obtained the wide-spread application in the Chinese traditional medicine extraction because it can remarkably reduce impurity content and viscosity of the plant materials. However the low enzyme activity and monoicous species hindered the application of enzymatic method to the extraction process of the herbal medicine. In this paper, we constructed a engineering strain which can overexpressed pectate lyase. The pectate lyase activity of gene engineering bacteria was even 100 times of the wild strain. The optimal temperature and pH of recombinant enzyme were 60°C and pH10.5.When the recombinant enzyme was used in the extraction process of flax seeds, the viscosity of the raw materials could be reduced by more than 45% and linseed oil content could be increased by 12%.The usage of pectate lyase in the extraction process showed to be a feasible way to promote the product development process of flax seeds or other medicinal herbs.