Consensus phytases

1. A process for obtaining a consensus protein from a group of amino acid sequences of the phytase protein family, which comprises:

a) aligning at least three amino acid sequences selected from the group consisting of the amino acid sequences encoding the phytases of phyA from Aspergillus terreus 9A-1 (from amino acid (aa) 27) (SEQ ID NO: 1), phyA from Aspergillus terreus cbs116.46 (from aa 27) (SEQ ID NO: 2), phyA from Aspergillus niger var. awamori (from aa 27) (SEQ ID NO: 3), phyA from Aspergillus niger T213 (from aa 27) (SEQ ID NO: 4), phyA from Aspergillus niger strain NRRL3135 (from aa 27) (SEQ ID NO: 5), phyA from Aspergillus fumigatus ATCC 13073 (from aa 25) (SEQ ID NO: 6), phyA from Aspergillus fumigatus ATCC 32722 (from aa 27) (SEQ ID NO: 7), phyA from Aspergillus fumigatus ATCC 58128 (from aa 27) (SEQ ID NO: 8), phyA from Aspergillus fumigatus ATCC 26906 (from aa 27) (SEQ ID NO: 9), phyA from Aspergillus fumigatus ATCC 32239 (from aa 30) (SEQ ID NO: 10), phyA from Aspergillus nidulans (from aa 25) (SEQ ID NO: 11), phyA from Talaromyces thermophilus (from aa 24) (SEQ ID NO: 12); and phyA from Myceliophthora thermophila (from aa 19) (SEQ ID NO: 13);

b) selecting a consensus amino acid for an amino acid position of the aligned sequences wherein:

(i) if two amino acids which occupy the position are identical, then the identical amino acid is selected as the consensus amino acid for the position, unless five or more amino acid sequences are aligned in step a) and three or more amino acids other than the identical amino acids at the position have a higher degree of structural similarity to each other than to the identical amino acid, in which case the amino acid at the position having the highest degree of structural similarity to the three or more amino acids other than the identical amino acids is selected as the consensus amino acid for the position;

(ii) if a set of amino acid sequences exists within the amino acid sequences aligned in step a) wherein the amino acid sequences within the set have more evolutionary similarity to each other than to any of the aligned amino acid sequences that are not part of the set, then the amino acid in each amino acid sequence in the set that corresponds to the position will have a vote weight of one divided by the number of amino acid sequences in the set and the amino acid in each amino acid sequence not in the set that corresponds to the position will have a vote weight of one, wherein the vote weight is used in determining the degree of structural similarity of the amino acids at said position in accordance with step (i); and

(iii) if no consensus amino acid for said position is obtained by (i) and (ii), then any amino acid at the position is selected as the consensus amino acid;

c) repeating step b) for each position in the aligned amino acid sequences in step a) to obtain a consensus amino acid sequence;

d) back-translating the consensus amino acid sequence into a DNA sequence; and

e) translating the DNA sequence of step d) into a consensus protein having a melting point temperature (Tm) higher than the Tm of any of the amino acid sequences in step a).

2. The process according to claim 1 wherein the number of amino acid sequences in step a) is three or four.

3. The process according to claim 1 wherein the amino acid selected in step b) (iii) is the most frequent amino acid.

4. The process according to claim 1 further comprising:

(1) transforming a host cell with the DNA sequence of step d);

(2) growing the transformed host cell under suitable culture conditions; and

(3) isolating the expressed protein from the host cell and/or its culture medium.

5. The process according to claim 4 wherein the back-translating step is carried out using a codon frequency table of the host cell used to express the consensus protein.

6. The process according to claim 1 wherein the program used for the comparison of amino acids at a defined position regarding their structural similarity is the program “PRETTY”.

7. The process according to claim 1 , wherein the phytases are of fungal origin.

8. The process according to claim 4 wherein the host cell is of eukaryotic origin.

9. The process according to claim 8 , wherein the host cell is a fungal cell.

10. The process according to claim 9 wherein the fungal cell is an Aspergillus or yeast cell.

11. The process according to claim 10 wherein the fungal cell is a Saccharomyces or Hansenula cell.

12. The process according to claim 1 wherein the amino acid sequences aligned in step a) consists of from three to one hundred amino acid sequences.

13. The process according to claim 1 wherein the consensus protein has a temperature optimum for maximum enzymatic activity higher than the temperature optimum of any of the proteins having the amino acid sequences aligned in step a).

14. The process according to claim 1 wherein the consensus protein has a temperature optimum for maximum enzymatic activity at least 15° C. higher than the temperature optimum of any of the proteins having the amino acid sequences aligned in step a).

15. The process according to claim 1 wherein the consensus protein has a temperature optimum for maximum enzymatic activity from 15 to 25° C. higher than the temperature optimum of any of the proteins having the amino acid sequences aligned in step a).

16. The process according to claim 1 wherein the consensus protein has a melting point temperature (Tm) at least 14.7° C. higher than the Tm of any of the proteins having the amino acid sequences aligned in step a).

17. The process according to claim 1 wherein the consensus protein has a Tm from 14.7 to 22.3° C. higher than the Tm of any of the proteins having the amino acid sequences aligned in step a).