摘要：Diet of the crab-eating monkey (
Macaca fascicularis) consists of both plants and animals, including chitin-containing organisms such as crabs and insects. This omnivorous monkey has a high expression of acidic chitinase (CHIA) in the stomach and here
, we report on its enzymatic properties under different conditions. When we compared with
Mus musculus CHIA (
Mm-CHIA),
Macaca fascicularis CHIA (
Mf-CHIA) exhibits higher chitinolytic activity at broad pH (1.0–7.0) and temperature (30–70 ℃) range. Interestingly, at its optimum pH (5.0),
Mf-CHIA showed the highest activity at 65 °C while maintaining it at robust levels between 50 and 70 °C. The degradation efficiency of
Mf-CHIA was superior to
Mm-CHIA toward both polymeric chitin as well as an artificial chromogenic substrate. Our results show that unique features of
Mf-CHIA including its thermostability warrant the nomination of this enzyme for potential agricultural and biomedical applications.
