100 mM sodium phosphate (pH 7.5) in a total volume of 10 μL
was incubated for 15 min at 25 °C. For TCEP treatment, the reaction
mixtures were incubated for 60 min at 37 °C in the presence of
10 mM TCEP. The reaction mixtures were then loaded onto a TSKgel G2000
SWXL column (TOSOH, Tokyo, Japan) equilibrated with 20 mM NaPi (pH
7.0) containing 200 mM Na2SO4 at 25 °C.
The reaction mixture containing PhaC was eluted with the same buffer
at a flow rate of 1 mL/min at 25 °C. The molecular weight was
determined from the calibration curve prepared using the following
molecular weight standards: alcohol dehydrogenase (150 kDa, 7.7 min),
BSA (66 kDa, 8.4 min), ovalbumin (44 kDa, 9.1 min), C2 (16 kDa, 10.9
min), and aprotinin (6.5 kDa, 11.8 min).
Native PAGE was carried
out using precast gradient (4–12%) Bis-Tris gels (Invitrogen,
Carlsbad, CA), according to standard protocols. The gels were visualized
by silver staining using a SilverXpress Silver Staining Kit (Invitrogen,
Carlsbad, CA).