Enzymes for in vitro DNA manipulation and oligonucleotides were purchased from New England Biolabs (Ipswich, MA, USA) and Sigma Aldrich (St. Louis, MO, USA), respectively. The [methyl-³H]TTP was purchased from Amersham (Buckinghamshire, UK) and the [γ³²-P]ATP was purchased from NEN Life Science Products (Boston, MA, USA).

Extraction of DNA from the environmental specimens was performed with an UltraClean Soil DNA Isolation Kit (MO BIO, San Diego, CA, USA), according to the manufacturer's instructions. The extracted DNAs were assessed by agarose gel electrophoresis and were quantified by spectrophotometrical measurement.

The expression plasmid for Taq polymerase, pTV-Taq, which contains the entire region of the structural gene encoding Taq polymerase in the pTV118N vector (Takara Bio, Shiga, Japan), was constructed exactly as described (Ishino et al., 1994). The gene in the pTV118N vector was expressed under control of the lac promoter and SD sequence. The pTV-Taq plasmid was subjected to site-specific mutagenesis, using QuikChange™ kit (Agilent Technologies, Santa Clara, CA, USA) to introduce BlpI (GCTNAGC) and BglII (AGATCT) restriction sites into the positions corresponding to the 5′- and 3′-termini, respectively, of the substitution region within the Taq pol gene. The insertion of a BglII site leads to the mutations of amino acids, Leu787Ile and Val788Leu. The resultant plasmid was named pTV-Taq', and it was used for the expression of chimeric Taq polymerases, produced by the direct substitution of the BlpI–BglII fragment with the pol gene fragments from the environmental DNAs, as described in detail below.

A region of the pol genes was amplified directly from the environmental DNA by PCR, using a primer set with the sequences 5′-dCGCAGGCTAAGCAGCTCCGAYCCHAACYTSCARAAYATHCC-3′ and 5′- dGAGYAAGATCTCRTCGTGNACYTG-3′, which correspond to the degenerate codons for DPNLQNIP (forward) and QVHDEIL (reverse), respectively (Y indicates C and T; H indicates A, C, and T; S indicates C and G; R indicates A and G; N indicates A, G, C, and T). The above two regions, which are conserved in the family A DNA polymerases, were successfully used to make a mixed primer set for PCR (Uemori et al., 1993). The nucleotide sequences corresponding to the conserved regions are shown in boldface, and the restriction endonuclease recognition sequences are underlined in the above primers. PCR was performed in a 50 μl reaction, containing 10 ng DNA, 25 pmol of each primer, 0.2 mM dNTP, and 1 unit of PfuUltra DNA polymerase (Stratagene). After an incubation of the mixture without the enzyme for 3 min at 95°C, thirty-cycles of PCR, with a temperature profile of 30 s at 95°C, 30 s at 55°C, and 1 min at 72°C, were performed. The reaction mixtures were electrophoresed in a 1% agarose gel, and the amplified fragments were visualized by ethidium bromide staining.

DNA fragments with a 600 bp size, amplified from the environmental DNA by PCR, were excised from the agarose gel, digested with the BlpI and BglII restriction endonucleases, and ligated into the pTV-Taq' plasmid predigested with the BlpI and BglII restriction endonucleases. The ligation mixtures were introduced into E. coli JM109 cells (TaKaRa Bio.), and 20 clones were picked independently from the transformants for each amplification. Plasmid DNAs were extracted from these clones, and the nucleotide sequences of the DNA inserts were determined by CEQ2000XL DNA analysis system (Beckman Coulter, USA).

The pTV-Taq plasmid was subjected to site-specific mutagenesis to introduce mutations into positions 742 and 743 of Taq polymerase. The sequences of the 14 primers used for mutagenesis are shown in Table 1. The PCR reaction mixture contained 20 ng template DNA, 1× PCR buffer for KOD-Plus-Neo, 1.5 mM Mg₂SO₄, 0.2 mM of each dNTP, 0.3 μM of each primer, and 0.5 unit KOD-Plus-Neo DNA polymerase (TOYOBO, Osaka, Japan) in a final volume of 20 μl. The mixture was heated at 95°C for 30 s and then subjected to thermal cycling (14 cycles of 95°C for 30 s, 55°C for 1 min, and 68°C for 8 min). The PCR product was treated with DpnI at 37°C for 1 h, and introduced into E. coli JM109 cells. For each mutation, the polymerase gene was fully sequenced to ensure that the mutation of interest was present and that no additional mutation was introduced by the PCR.

E. coli JM109 cells carrying the expression plasmid were grown at 37°C, in 1 L of LB medium containing 100 μg/ml ampicillin. The cells were cultured to an A₆₀₀ of 0.2–0.3, and then the expression of the pol gene was induced by further cultivation for 3 h in the presence of 1 mM isopropyl-β-D-thiogalactopyranoside (IPTG). The cells were harvested and disrupted by sonication in the lysis solution (50 mM Tris-HCl, pH 8.0, 1 mM DTT, 1 mM EDTA, 1 mM PMSF). For the preparation of the WT and mutant Taq polymerases, the soluble cell extract, obtained by centrifugation at 12,000 × g for 20 min, was heated at 75°C for 30 min. The heat-stable fraction was obtained by centrifugation, and was treated with 0.15% (w/v) polyethyleneimine in the presence of 1 M NaCl, to remove the nucleic acids. The soluble proteins were precipitated by 80%-saturated ammonium sulfate. The precipitate was resuspended in the buffer [50 mM Tris-HCl, pH 8.0, 0.5 M (NH₄)₂SO₄], and was subjected to chromatography on a hydrophobic column (HiTrap Phenyl HP 5 ml, GE Healthcare). The column was washed with 50 mM Tris-HCl, pH 8.0, and the Taq polymerase was eluted with deionized water. An equal volume of 100 mM Tris-HCl, pH 8.0, was added to this fraction, and it was then subjected to affinity chromatography (HiTrap Heparin HP 5 ml, GE Healthcare) with a gradient of 0–2 M NaCl. The proteins that eluted at 0.8 M NaCl were stored at −25°C as the final sample, in 20 mM Tris-HCl, pH 8.0, 100 mM KCl, 0.1 mM EDTA, 1 mM DTT, 0.5% NP-40, 0.5% Tween 20, and 50% (w/v) glycerol.

The DNA polymerizing activity was assayed by measuring the incorporation of [methyl-³H]TTP into the acid insoluble materials, basically as described previously (Uemori et al., 1995). To a 50 μl solution, containing 20 mM Tris-HCl, pH 8.8, 5 mM MgCl₂, 14 mM 2-mecaptoethanol, 0.2 mM each dATP, dGTP, dCTP, and dTTP, 400 nM [methyl-³H]dTTP, and 20 μg of activated salmon sperm DNA, a constant amount of the enzyme fraction was added, and the reaction was incubated at 74°C for 2.5, 5, and 10 min. After the reaction, a 10 μl portion of each reaction mixture was spotted onto DE81 filters (GE Healthcare Japan, Tokyo, Japan). The filters were washed three times with a 5% Na₂HPO₄ solution, and the radioactivity incorporated into the DNA strands was counted by a scintillation counter. One unit of activity is defined as the amount of enzyme catalyzing the incorporation of 10 nmol of dNTP into DNA per 30 min at 74°C, and the specific activity was calculated as the units per one mg of protein (units/mg) for each DNA polymerase.

The primer extension ability was investigated by using M13 single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) annealed with a ³²P-labeled DNA, as described previously (Cann et al., 1999). M13 ssDNA (0.05 pmol), annealed with a 55 nucleotide long primer (5′-dTCGTAATCATGGTCATAGCTGTTTCCTGTGTGAAATTGTTATCCGCTCACAATTC-3′), was mixed with each DNA polymerase (0.05 unit) and dNTP (0.2 mM) in a 20 μl solution, containing 20 mM Tris-HCl, pH 8.8, 5 mM MgCl₂, and 14 mM 2-mercaptoethanol, and incubated 74°C for 5 min. The reaction mixtures were analyzed by alkaline agarose gel electrophoresis, and the sizes of the products were visualized by autoradiography.

The electrophoretic mobility-shift assay (EMSA) was performed as described previously (Komori and Ishino, 2000), to measure the DNA binding ability of the DNA polymerases. The ³²P-labeled 27mer oligonucleotide (5′-dAGCTATGACCATGATTACGAATTGCTT-3′) was annealed with the 49mer oligonucleotide (5′-dAGCTACCATGCCTGCACGAATTAAGCAATTCGTAATCATGGTCATAGCT-3′) and was used as a DNA substrate. The radiolabeled DNA (3 nM) was mixed with DNA polymerase proteins (0.6–400 nM) in a 20 μl solution, containing 20 mM Tris-HCl, pH 8.8, 10 mM NaCl, 5 mM MgCl₂, 14 mM 2-mercaptoethanol, 0.1 mg/ml BSA, and 5%(w/v) glycerol, and incubated at 40°C for 5 min. The DNA-enzyme mixtures were fractionated by 1% agarose gel electrophoresis. The autoradiograms were scanned and the band intensities were quantified using an image analyzer (FLA5000; Fuji Film, Tokyo, Japan). The fraction of bound DNA in each lane was calculated to be: fraction bound DNA = 1 − fraction unbound DNA. The quantitated data for binding (association) was plotted vs. enzyme concentrations. The apparent Kd was determined to be the protein concentration at which the degree of binding equals 0.5.

We collected soil samples from various hot spring areas in Japan, and isolated the DNAs within these samples. Using these DNAs as templates, a region of the pol genes encoding family A DNA polymerase-like sequences was amplified. We previously reported the amplification of the pol gene encoding a family A DNA polymerase by a set of mixed primers based on the two conserved sequence motifs (Uemori et al., 1993). The mixed primer set worked for the specific amplification of the pol gene fragments from the hot spring samples in this study. As shown in Figure 1 (a part of the experiments is shown), a 600 bp DNA fragment was amplified as a single band from several samples. We tested 384 different samples, and detected the amplified DNA in 37 samples, obtained at Onikobe, Hachimantai, Nasu, Kirishima, and Beppu, as shown in Table 2. These locations had various environmental conditions, including pH values of 1~7 and temperatures of mostly 70–100°C, and thus were expected to be inhabited by microorganisms with highly diverse genetic resources. The efficiency of DNA isolation was not addressed in this experiment, and thus it is possible that a sufficient amount of DNA was not present in some samples. Therefore, the result that only about 10% of the samples provided target gene amplification is not directly related to the presence or absence of microorganisms in the samples. The amplified gene fragments were excised from the gel, and were cloned into a plasmid vector. Twenty colonies were isolated independently from each cloning of the amplified DNA, and a total of 740 (20 × 37 amplifications) plasmids were isolated. These cloned DNA fragments were subjected to sequencing, and the different sequences were counted (Table 2). In total, we obtained 250 different sequences, which were not present in the public databases. This result suggested that there are still many uncharacterized DNA polymerases in the soil samples, as expected.

The amplified gene fragments encode the region in the family A DNA polymerase that is important for the nucleotide connecting reaction. To investigate the structure and function relationships of the family A DNA polymerases, we substituted the corresponding region of Taq polymerase gene with the amplified gene fragments in vitro. To construct the expression plasmids for the chimeric Taq polymerases systematically, restriction sites were created at appropriate sites in the Taq pol structural gene (Figure 2). For this purpose, the BlpI and BglII recognition sequences were suitable, although the substitutions of two amino acids, Leu797Val and Ile798Leu, could not be avoided by the introduction of BglII at the reverse priming site. The mutant Taq polymerase (L797V/I798L) was purified, and we confirmed that its fundamental properties were not affected. Therefore, the mutant Taq, designated as Taq' polymerase, was considered to be equivalent to the WT Taq polymerase. PCR primers containing the recognition sequences for BlpI (forward primer) and BglII (reverse primer) at each 5′-terminus were synthesized and each cloned DNA was re-amplified, and thus 250 chimeric genes were constructed in the Taq polymerase expression plasmid. The total cell extracts of E. coli producing recombinant chimeric Taq polymerases were treated at 75°C for 30 min, and the supernatants were assayed to measure the nucleotide incorporation activity. About half of the chimeric enzymes were inactivated by the heat treatment. The thermostable chimeric Taq polymerases were further purified to apparent homogeneity by the procedure described in the Materials and Methods, and the specific activity (units/mg protein) was measured by the standard DNA polymerase assay, using activated DNA. Furthermore, the primer extension ability was evaluated for each enzyme, using a constant amount (unit). These results are summarized in Table 3, which shows only the chimeric Taq polymerases possessing extension abilities better than 5 kb per 5 min-reaction. As shown in the Table 3, 13 enzymes were superior to WT Taq polymerase. However, the thermostabilities of these high-speed DNA polymerases were not sufficient for PCR applications (data not shown).

The amino acid sequences of the chimeric Taq polymerases with extension rates greater than 1 kb/min (in the condition of 0.0025 unit/μl) are aligned in Figure 3. In this alignment, we focused on the region from amino acids 730 to 745 in the Taq polymerase. One distinct feature is that 3 genes and 4 genes have insertions of 9 amino acids and 3 amino acids, respectively, as compared with WT Taq polymerase. The other characteristic feature is that continuous stretches of basic amino acids were found at residues 741–743 in the chimeric Taq polymerases. The WT Taq polymerase has Glu and Ala at 742 and 743, but many chimeric enzymes showing faster extension have Arg at both positions. The crystal structure of the large fragment of Taq polymerase (Klentaq)-DNA complex revealed that Glu742 directly interacts with the template DNA in the closed conformation, but not in the open conformation (Li et al., 1998). As shown in the right panel of Figure 4, the residues Glu742 and Ala743 (magenta) are located in the finger subdomain and face to the template DNA (blue). The basic amino acid cluster in the chimeric Taq polymerases is supposed to interact with the template DNA. We focused on this finding, and made a series of mutant polymerases by substitutions at positions 742 and 743 in WT Taq polymerase to change the affinity of the enzymes with DNA. The names of the mutant enzymes are as follows: RR (E742R/A743R), RA (E742R), AA (E742A), ER (A743R), AR (E742A/A743R), RK (E742R/A743K), KR (E742K/A743R), KK (E742K/A743K), QY (E742Q/A743Y), AH (E742A/A743H), EH (A743H), HA (E742H), HH (E742H/A743H), and HK (E742H/A743K). Fourteen mutant recombinant enzymes were purified to homogeneity from E. coli cells. The specific activity (units/mg protein) was measured by the standard incorporation assay (Table 4). Thermal stabilities of the mutant Taq polymerases were similar to WT enzyme (data not shown).

The in vitro primer extension rates were compared for these mutant Taq polymerases, as well as WT Taq polymerase. As shown in Figure 5, all of the mutant Taq polymerases exhibited faster extension reactions compared with that by the WT. The results of these experiments were quantified. The increased extension rate is generally related to the number of positive charges at this site (Table 4). The basic residues gave the varied effects. The positive charge of His appeared to have lower effect than those of Arg and Lys. There is a difference in pKa among the basic residues, and pKa of His, Arg and Lys are 6.8, 12.5, and 11.0, respectively. The relative degree of positive charge of His is estimated to be low. The DNA binding affinity of each enzyme was evaluated by EMSA, using a primed-DNA as a ³²P-labeled probe. As shown in Figure 6, the DNA binding ability of all the mutant Taq polymerases was distinctly increased from that of WT Taq polymerase. The increased number of positive charge at the positions 742 and 743 appeared to provide higher binding efficiency of Taq polymerase. Apparent Kd was determined with EMSA (Table 4). All the mutants bound to DNA by up to 2 orders of magnitude more tightly than WT Taq polymerase. Although there is no difference in the apparent Kd among these mutants, the second-shifted bands appeared in the gel images of EMSA in the case of the mutants, which possess Arg or Lys at the positions 742 and 743. The positive charge of Arg or Lys at the positions 742 and 743 might cause a nonspecific binding, in addition to the functional binding, of the enzyme to DNA.

The main goal of this study was to create PCR enzymes with superior performance, as compared to that of WT Taq polymerase. Since the mutant Taq polymerases are as thermostable as WT enzyme, it was promising to apply these enzymes to PCR. Therefore, the PCR performances for several target DNAs with different lengths were compared. A representative example of the PCR experiments is shown in Figure 7. For the amplification of 15 kb of DNA, several mutant Taq polymerases, AA, RA, AH, EH, HA, and HH, successfully amplified the target DNA under conditions where WT Taq polymerase did not function. The other mutant enzymes prepared in this study did not work well in the same conditions. The performances of some of the mutant enzymes, RR, QY, ER, AR, and HK, are shown in Figure 7. These experiments showed inconsistency with the results of primer extension experiment. The target DNA product was not detected by the mutant enzymes that possess primer extension rate with >8 kb/5 min. The enzymes with extension rate of >8 kb/5 min have Arg or Lys at the positions 742 and 743. The observed PCR inhibition by these mutations may be due to the too tight binding to DNA, suggested by the EMSA as shown in the Section Faster Primer Extension by the Mutant Taq Polymerases. These results indicated that the positions of 742 and 743 in Taq polymerase are important for DNA strand synthesis, and the electrostatic environment of this site severely affects its PCR performance.

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.