It has been proposed that family VIII carboxylesterases and class C ␤-lactamases are phylogenetically related; however, none of carboxylesterases has been reported to hydrolyze ␤-lactam antibiotics except nitrocefin, a nonclinical chromogenic substrate. Here, we describe the first example of a novel carboxylesterase derived from a metagenome that is able to cleave the amide bond of various ␤-lactam substrates and the ester bond of p-nitrophenyl esters. A clone with lipolytic activity was selected by functional screening of a metagenomic library using tributyrin agar plates. The sequence analysis of the clone revealed the presence of an open reading frame (estU1) encoding a polypeptide of 426 amino acids, retaining an S-X-X-K motif that is conserved in class C ␤-lactamases and family VIII carboxylesterases. The gene was overexpressed in Escherichia coli, and the purified recombinant protein (EstU1) was further characterized. EstU1 showed esterase activity toward various chromogenic p-nitrophenyl esters. In addition, it exhibited hydrolytic activity toward nitrocefin, leading us to investigate whether EstU1 could hydrolyze ␤-lactam antibiotics. EstU1 was able to hydrolyze firstgeneration ␤-lactam antibiotics, such as cephalosporins, cephaloridine, cephalothin, and cefazolin. In a kinetic study, EstU1 showed a similar range of substrate affinities for both p-nitrophenyl butyrate and first-generation cephalosporins while the turnover efficiency for the latter was much lower. Furthermore, site-directed mutagenesis studies revealed that the catalytic triad of EstU1 plays a crucial role in hydrolyzing both ester bonds of p-nitrophenyl esters and amide bonds of the ␤-lactam ring of antibiotics, implicating the predicted catalytic triad of EstU1 in both activities.

A gene encoding a putative alanine racemase in Xanthomonas. oryzae pv. oryzae was cloned, expressed and characterized. Expression of the cloned gene was performed in Escherichia coli BL21(DE3)pLys using a pET-21(a) vector harbouring 6 × histidine tag. Purification of the recombinant alanine racemase by affinity chromatography resulted in major one band by sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacryl amide gel electrophoresis analysis, showing about 45 kDa of molecular weight. The alanine racemase gene, cloned in this experiment, appears to be constitutively expressed in X. oryzae, as analyzed by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction. The enzyme was the most active toward L-alanine and secondly D-alanine, showing a racemic reaction, thus the enzyme is considered as an alanine racemase. The enzyme was considerably activated by addition of pyridoxal-5-phosphate (PLP), showing that 75% increase in activity was observed at 0.3 mM, compared with control. D-Cysteine as well as L-cysteine significantly inhibited the enzyme activity. The inhibitions by cysteines were more prominent in the absence of PLP, showing 9 and 5% of control activity at 2 mM of addition, respectively. The enzyme was the most active at pH 8.0 and more stable at alkaline pHs than acidic pH condition.