Crystallization and preliminary diffraction analysis of the catalytic domain of major extracellular endoglucanase from Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris

Cellulases, such as endoglucanases, exoglucanases and β-glucosidases, are important enzymes used in the process of enzymatic hydrolysis of plant biomass. The bacteria Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris expresses a large number of hydrolases and the major endoglucanase (XccEG), a member of glycoside hydrolase family 5 (GH5), is the most strongly secreted extracellularly. In this work, the native XccEG was purified from the extracellular extract and crystallization assays were performed on its catalytic domain. A complete data set was collected on an in-house X-ray source. The crystal diffracted to 2.7 Å resolution and belonged to space group C2, with unit-cell parameters a = 174.66, b = 141.53, c = 108.00 Å, β = 110.49°. The Matthews coefficient suggests a solvent content of 70.1% and the presence of four protein subunits in the asymmetric unit.