AMINO ACID RACEMASE

PURPOSE:To provide an amino acid racemase produced by a bacterial strain of Pseudomonas genus and acting to aromatic amino acids such as phenylalanine without necessitating ATP as coenzyme. CONSTITUTION:A bacterial strain belonging to Pseudomonas genus, e.g. Pseudomonas putida SCRC-744 (FERM P-9039) separated from soil of Sagamihara-City, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan is cultured in a liquid medium at 25-37 deg.C for preferably 6-48hr under aerobic condition controlling the pH of the system to 5-9. The resultant cultured product is purified to obtain an amino acid racemase catalyzing a reaction to produce a racemic compound from L- or D-amino acid, exhibiting a molecular weight of 60,000-80,000 by high-performance liquid chromatography-gel filtration method, containing a subunit having a molecular weight of 30,000-42,000 by SDS-polyacrylamide disk electrophoresis and acting to phenylalanine, tryptophan and tyrosine which are aromatic amino acids.