Recombinant rice xylanase inhibitor (RIXI) expressed in Escherichia coli and its inhibitory activity on family GH11endo-xylanases.

The rice xylanase inhibitor gene, rixi, was cloned from rice genome. The open reading frame of rixi was 915 bp and encoded 304 amino acids with the theoretical molecular mass of 33.9 kDa. The rixi was inserted into the new-type expression vector pCold TF, and was high-level expressed in Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3). SDS-PAGE and Western blot analysis revealed that the molecular weight of the recombinant rice xylanase inhibitor, namely reERIXI, was approximately 89.8 kDa. The reERIXI exhibited significant inhibitory activities against several family GH11 xylanases. After interaction with reERIXI, the residual activity of reBaxA50 and TfxA_CD214 were 59.24% and 44.41%, respectively. The optimal temperature of reERIXI inhibitory activity to reBaxA50 and TfxA_CD214 were 60 °C and 50 °C, respectively. The thermostability assay revealed that reERIXI was stable below 60 °C. reERIXI showed high inhibitory when interacting with reBaxA50 and TfxA_CD214 for 30-60 min. The intrinsic fluorescence spectroscopy of reBaxA50 and TfxA_CD214 was quenched with increasing reERIXI concentration. Circular dichroism measurement revealed that ratio of helix of reBaxA50 and ratio of beta of TfxA_CD214 significantly decreased when interacting with reERIXI. The total concentration of hydrolytic products from beechwood xylan decreased when reERIXI was added.