Supplemental Figure

Fig. S1 Comparison of the Pels studied with the known Pels belonging to Family 1 from
Bacillus strains. Sequences from Pel-103 (2), Pel-7 (3), BsPel (4) and PelC-EC (6) were
retrieved from NCBI and EMBL database. PelC-EC is from Erwinia chrysanthemi. Identical
residues are indicated by an asterisk, conservative substitutions are indicated by dots. Amino
acids mentioned in the text (Asp-185, Asp-224, and Asp-229) are in bold print.

Supplemental Tables

Table S1. Bacterial strains and plasmids

Strains and plasmids	Genotypesa and characteristics
	Origin or reference	

Strains
Bacillus subtilis BS 66
Bacillus fusiformis BS 90
Bacillus pumilus BS 22
Escherichia coli NM522

Plasmids
pUC18 
pBluescript (pBS)
pGEMT
pGN66

pGN66-1

pGN90

pGN22	

Wild type
Wild type
Wild type                                                                                                                           
∆(lac-proAB) ∆(mcrB-hsdSM)5 supE thi (F9 proAB lacIq lacZ∆M15)

Apr
Cmr, LacZ’
Apr,
pUC18 with 3.8 kb Sau3A-Sau3A fragment containing the pel gene of B. subtilis BS66
pBS with 1.8 kb HindIII-HindIII subcloned fragment containing the pel gene of B. subtilis BS66
pGEMT with 1.55 kb amplified fragment containing the pel gene of B. fusiformis BS90
pGEMT with 1.25 kb amplified fragment containing the pel gene of B. pumilus BS22	

Ouattara et al. (5)
Ouattara et al. (5)
Ouattara et al, (5)
Laboratory  collection

Stratagene
Stratagene
Promega

This work

This work

This work

This work	
a: genotype symbols are according to Bachmann (1). LacZ’ indicates that the 3’ end of this gene is truncated.
Apr, resistance to Ampicillin; Cmr, resistance to Chloramphenicol 

Table S2. Effect of alkaline pH on Pel activity on 90 % esterified pectin.
	Pel activity (%)	
	Pel-22	Pel-66	Pel-90	
pH 7.5	100 (±3.77)	100 (±7.89)	100 (±11.17)	
pH 8.5	388,8 (±15.95)	394.44 (±11.23)	352,45 (±7.26)	
Assays were performed under standard conditions (100 mM Tris-HCl, 1 g/L pectin 90 % esterified, and pH 7.5
or 8.5). The reaction was carried out immediately after preparation of the reaction mixture. The reaction lasted
for 2 min. Each result reported is the average of three independent experiments, and the standard deviations are
indicated in brackets.

References

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