The deamination of glutamine is a crucial step in the production of enzymatically hydrolyzed plant proteins to reach high glutamic acid yields. The required glutaminase activity usually is provided by addition of technical enzymes or by in situ generation from fungi, yeast or bacteria (i.e. Aspergillus oryzae in soy sauce production). We screened food-grade Lactobacilli for potential glutaminase activity and selected the enzyme found in Lactobacillus rhamnosus for further characterization. Glutaminase from L. rhamnosus was induced by growing the microorganism on hydrolyzed wheat gluten, a glutamine-rich protein source. Glutamine deaminating activity (glutaminase, EC 3.5.1.2) was found to be membrane-bound and lost its activity gradually upon solubilization. Functional studies of the glutaminase showed an optimal working pH of 7.0 and maximum activity at 50degreesC. High salt-tolerance of the enzyme was observed, i.e. the presence of 5% (w/v) salt increased glutaminase activity almost two-fold and 90% of the initial activity still remained at 15% (w/v) salt. The glutaminase activity showed typical Michaelis-Menten behavior with an affinity constant K-m of 4.8 +/- 0.4 mM for glutamine and a V-max of 101 +/- 2 U/l. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.