Alpha-amylase is a kind of broadly used industrial enzymes, most of which have been exploited from terrestrial organism. Comparatively, alpha-amylase from marine environment was largely undeveloped. In this study, a novel alkalophilic alpha-amylase with high activity, Luteimonas abyssi alpha-amylase (LaaA), was cloned from deep-sea bacterium L abyssi XH031(T) and expressed in Escherichia coli BL21. The gene has a length of 1428 bp and encodes 475 amino acids with a 35-residue signal peptide. The specific activity of LaaA reached 8881 U/mg at the optimum pH 9.0, which is obvious higher than other reported alpha-amylase. This enzyme can remain active at pH levels ranging from 6.0 to 11.0 and temperatures below 45 degrees C, retaining high activity even at low temperatures (almost 38% residual activity at 10 C). In addition, 1 mM Na+, K+, and Mn2+ enhanced the activity of LaaA. To investigate the function of potential active sites, R227G, D229K, E256Q/H, H327V and D328V mutants were generated, and the results suggested that Arg227, Asp229, Glu256 and Asp328 were total conserved and essential for the activity of alpha-amylase LaaA. This study shows that the alpha-amylase LaaA is an alkali-tolerant and high-active amylase with strong potential for use in detergent industry. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.