• BMB Reports
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.53-57
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• 1998

The CMCax gene from Acetobacter xylinum ATCC 23769 was cloned and expressed in E. coli. With this gene, three gene products - mature CMCax, CMCax containing signal peptide(pre-CMCax), and a glutathione-S-transferase(GST)-CMCax fusion enzyme - were expressed. CMCax and pre-CMCax are aggregated to multimeric forms which showed high CMC hydrolysis activity, whereas GST-CMCax was less aggregated and showed lower activity, indicating that oligomerization of CMCax controbutes to the cellulose hydrolysis activity to achieve greater efficiency. The enzyme was identified to be an $\beta$-1,4-endoglucanase, which catalyzes the cleavage of internal $\beta$-1,4-glycosidic bonds of cellulose. The reaction products, cellobiose and cellotriose, from cellopentaose as a substrate, were identified by HPLC. Substrate specificity of cellotetraose by this enzyme was poor, and the reaction products consisted of glucose, cellobiose, and cellotriose in a very low yield. Theses results suggested that cellopentaose might be the oligosaccharide substrate consisting of the lowest number of glucose. The optimum pH of CMCax and pre CMCax was about 4.5, whereas that of GST-CMCas was rather broad at pH 4.5-8. The physiological significance of cellulose-hydrolyzing enzyme, CMCax, having such low $\beta$-1,4-endoglucanase activity and low optimum pH in cellulose-producing A. xylinum is not clearly known yet, but it seems to be closely related to the production of cellulose.

• Food Science of Animal Resources
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.134-138
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• 2017

Salmonella enterica infects a broad range of host animals, and zoonostic infection threatens both public health and the livestock and meat processing industries. Many antimicrobials have been developed to target Salmonella envelope that performs essential bacterial functions; however, there are very few analytical methods that can be used to validate the efficacy of these antimicrobials. In this study, to develop a potential biosensor for Salmonella envelope stress, we examined the transcription of the S. enterica serovar typhimurium spy gene, the ortholog of which in Escherichia coli encodes Spy (${\underline{s}}pheroplast$ ${\underline{p}}rotein$ ${\underline{y}}$). Spy is a chaperone protein expressed and localized in the periplasm of E. coli during spheroplast formation, or by exposure to protein denaturing conditions. spy expression in S. typhimurium was examined by constructing a spy-gfp transcriptional fusion. S. typhimurium spy transcription was strongly induced during spheroplast formation, and also when exposed to membrane-disrupting agents, including ethanol and the antimicrobial peptide polymyxin B. Moreover, spy induction required the activity of regulator proteins BaeR and CpxR, which are part of the major envelope stress response systems BaeS/BaeR and CpxA/CpxR, respectively. Results suggest that monitoring spy transcription may be useful to determine whether a molecule particularly cause envelope stress in Salmonella.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.28 no.12
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• pp.2079-2094
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• 2018

Sunflower trypsin inhibitor (SFTI) is a 14-amino-acid bicyclic peptide that contains a single internal disulfide bond. We initially constructed chimeras of SFTI with N-terminal secretion signals from the Escherichia coli OmpA and Pseudomonas aeruginosa ToxA, but only detected small amounts of protease inhibition resulting from these constructs. A substantially higher degree of protease inhibition was detected from a C-terminal SFTI fusion with E. coli YebF, which radiated more than a centimeter from an individual colony of E. coli using a culture-based inhibitor assay. Inhibitory activity was further improved in YebF-SFTI fusions by the addition of a trypsin cleavage signal immediately upstream of SFTI, and resulted in production of a 14-amino-acid, disulfide-bonded SFTI free in the culture supernatant. To assess the potential of the secreted SFTI to protect the ability of a cytotoxic protein to kill tumor cells, we utilized a tumor-selective form of the Pseudomonas ToxA (OTG-PE38K) alone and expressed as a polycistronic construct with YebF-SFTI in the tumor-targeted Salmonella VNP20009. When we assessed the ability of toxin-containing culture supernatants to kill MDA-MB-468 breast cancer cells, the untreated OTG-PE38K was able to eliminate all detectable tumor cells, while pretreatment with trypsin resulted in the complete loss of anticancer cytotoxicity. However, when OTG-PE38K was co-expressed with YebF-SFTI, cytotoxicity was completely retained in the presence of trypsin. These data demonstrate SFTI chimeras are secreted in a functional form and that co-expression of protease inhibitors with therapeutic proteins by tumor-targeted bacteria has the potential to enhance the activity of therapeutic proteins by suppressing their degradation within a proteolytic environment.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.930-939
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• 2024

Mushroom laccases play a crucial role in lignin depolymerization, one of the most critical challenges in lignin utilization. Importantly, laccases can utilize a wide range of substrates, such as toxicants and antibiotics. This study isolated a novel laccase, named HeLac4c, from endophytic white-rot fungi Hericium erinaceus mushrooms. The cDNAs for this enzyme were 1569 bp in length and encoded a protein of 523 amino acids, including a 20 amino-acid signal peptide. Active extracellular production of glycosylated laccases from Saccharomyces cerevisiae was successfully achieved by selecting an optimal translational fusion partner. We observed that 5 and 10 mM Ca²⁺, Zn²⁺, and K⁺ increased laccase activity, whereas 5 mM Fe²⁺ and Al³⁺ inhibited laccase activity. The laccase activity was inhibited by the addition of low concentrations of sodium azide and ⳑ-cysteine. The optimal pH for the 2,2'-Azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) diammonium salt was 4.4. Guaiacylglycerol-β-guaiacyl ether, a lignin model compound, was polymerized by the HeLac4c enzyme. These results indicated that HeLac4c is a novel oxidase biocatalyst for the bioconversion of lignin into value-added products for environmental biotechnological applications.

• 한국균학회소식:학술대회논문집
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• 2014.05a
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• pp.27-28
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• 2014

Beauveria bassiana (Cordycipitaceae, Hypocreales, Ascomycota) is an anamorphic fungus having a potential to be used as a biological control agent because it parasitizes a wide range of arthropod hosts including termites, aphids, beetles and many other insects. A number of bioactive secondary metabolites (SMs) have been isolated from B. bassiana and functionally verified. Among them, beauvericin and bassianolide are cyclic depsipeptides with antibiotic and insecticidal effects belonging to the enniatin family. Non-ribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPSs) play a crucial role in the synthesis of these secondary metabolites. NRPSs are modularly organized multienzyme complexes in which each module is responsible for the elongation of proteinogenic and non-protein amino acids, as well as carboxyl and hydroxyacids. A minimum of three domains are necessary for one NRPS elongation module: an adenylation (A) domain for substrate recognition and activation; a tholation (T) domain that tethers the growing peptide chain and the incoming aminoacyl unit; and a condensation (C) domain to catalyze peptide bond formation. Some of the optional domains include epimerization (E), heterocyclization (Cy) and oxidation (Ox) domains, which may modify the enzyme-bound precursors or intermediates. In the present study, we analyzed genomes of B. bassiana and its allied species in Hypocreales to verify the distribution of NRPS-encoding genes involving biosynthesis of beauvericin and bassianolide, and to unveil the evolutionary processes of the gene clusters. Initially, we retrieved completely or partially assembled genomic sequences of fungal species belonging to Hypocreales from public databases. SM biosynthesizing genes were predicted from the selected genomes using antiSMASH program. Adenylation (A) domains were extracted from the predicted NRPS, NRPS-like and NRPS-PKS hybrid genes, and used them to construct a phylogenetic tree. Based on the preliminary results of SM biosynthetic gene prediction in B. bassiana, we analyzed the conserved gene orders of beauvericin and bassianolide biosynthetic gene clusters among the hypocrealean fungi. Reciprocal best blast hit (RBH) approach was performed to identify the regions orthologous to the biosynthetic gene cluster in the selected fungal genomes. A clear recombination pattern was recognized in the inferred A-domain tree in which A-domains in the 1st and 2nd modules of beauvericin and bassianolide synthetases were grouped in CYCLO and EAS clades, respectively, suggesting that two modules of each synthetase have evolved independently. In addition, inferred topologies were congruent with the species phylogeny of Cordycipitaceae, indicating that the gene fusion event have occurred before the species divergence. Beauvericin and bassianolide synthetases turned out to possess identical domain organization as C-A-T-C-A-NM-T-T-C. We also predicted precursors of beauvericin and bassianolide synthetases based on the extracted signature residues in A-domain core motifs. The result showed that the A-domains in the 1st module of both synthetases select D-2-hydroxyisovalerate (D-Hiv), while A-domains in the 2nd modules specifically activate L-phenylalanine (Phe) in beauvericin synthetase and leucine (Leu) in bassianolide synthetase. antiSMASH ver. 2.0 predicted 15 genes in the beauvericin biosynthetic gene cluster of the B. bassiana genome dispersed across a total length of approximately 50kb. The beauvericin biosynthetic gene cluster contains beauvericin synthetase as well as kivr gene encoding NADPH-dependent ketoisovalerate reductase which is necessary to convert 2-ketoisovalarate to D-Hiv and a gene encoding a putative Gal4-like transcriptional regulator. Our syntenic comparison showed that species in Cordycipitaceae have almost conserved beauvericin biosynthetic gene cluster although the gene order and direction were sometimes variable. It is intriguing that there is no region orthologous to beauvericin synthetase gene in Cordyceps militaris genome. It is likely that beauvericin synthetase was present in common ancestor of Cordycipitaceae but selective gene loss has occurred in several species including C. militaris. Putative bassianolide biosynthetic gene cluster consisted of 16 genes including bassianolide synthetase, cytochrome P450 monooxygenase, and putative Gal4-like transcriptional regulator genes. Our synteny analysis found that only B. bassiana possessed a bassianolide synthetase gene among the studied fungi. This result is consistent with the groupings in A-domain tree in which bassianolide synthetase gene found in B. bassiana was not grouped with NRPS genes predicted in other species. We hypothesized that bassianolide biosynthesizing cluster genes in B. bassiana are possibly acquired by horizontal gene transfer (HGT) from distantly related fungi. The present study showed that B. bassiana is the only species capable of producing both beauvericin and bassianolide. This property led to B. bassiana infect multiple hosts and to be a potential biological control agent against agricultural pests.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.716-722
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• 2006

Superoxide dismutase (SOD) is physiologically important in regulating cellular homeostasis and apoptotic cell death, and its mutations are the cause of familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (FALS). Mitochondrial serine protease HtrA2 has a pro-apoptotic function and has known to be associated with neurodegenerative disorders. To investigate the relationship between genes associated with apoptotic cell death, such as HtrA2 and SOD1, we utilized the pGEX expression system to develop a simple and rapid method for purifying wild-type and ALS-associated mutant SOD1 proteins in a suitable form for biochemical studies. We purified SOD1 and SOD1 (G93A) proteins to approximately 90% purity with relatively high yields (3 mg per liter of culture). Consistent with the result in mammalian cells, SOD1 (G93A) was more insoluble than wild-type SOD1 in E. coli, indicating that research on the aggregate formation of SOD1 may be possible using this pGEX expression system in E. coli. We investigated the HtrA2 serine protease activity on SOD1 to assess the relationship between two proteins. Not only wild-type SOD1 but also ALS-associated mutant SOD1 (G93A) were cleaved by HtrA2, resulting in the production of the 19 kDa and 21 kDa fragments that were specific for anti-SOD1 antibody. Using protein gel electrophoresis and immunoblot assay, we compared the relative molecular masses of thrombin-cleaved GST-SOD1 and HtrA2-cleaved SOD1 fragments and can predict that the HtrA2-cleavage sites within SOD1 are the peptide bonds between leucine 9-lysine 10 (L9-K10) and glutamine 23-lysine 24 (Q23-K24). Our study indicates that SOD1 is one of the substrate for HtrA2, suggesting that both HtrA2 and SOD1 may be important for modulating the HtrA2-SOD1-mediated apopotic cell death that is associated with the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative disorder.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.229-238
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• 1988

In vitro culture of Toxoplasma gondii in HL-60 cells and cell-mediates immunity against Toxoplasma in dimethylsulfoxide(DMSO) -induced HL-60 cells, i.e., differentiation into granulocytes, were pursued. HL-60 calls were treated with various concentrations of DMSO, and 1.3%(v/v) for 3 day incubation was chosen as the optimal condition icy differentiation into granulocytes. The degree of differentiation was assayed in physiological and functional aspects in addition to morphological point. When treated with 1.3% DMSO for 3 days, HL-60 cells did not synthesiar DNA materials beyond background level, and showed active chemotactic response to chemotactic peptide, formal-methionyl-leucyl-phenylalanine(FMLP). Morphologically promyelocytes of high nuclearlcytoplasmic(NIC) ratio changed to granulocytes of relatively low WJC ratio. The relationships between HL-60 cells or DMSO-induced HL-60 cells and Toxoplasma were examined after stain with Giemsa and Buorescent dye (acridine orange). HL-60 cells did not show any sign of torso- plasmacidal activity but showed intracellular proliferation of Texoplasma to form rosette for 72 hr co-culture. In contrast, OMSO-induced HL-60 cells phagocytosed Toxoplasma within 1 hr, and performed a process of intracellular digestion of Toxoplasma thereafter. With the above results, it is suggested that phagosome-Iysosome fusion is one of the critical events for the parasitism by Toxoplasma or for susceptibility of host cells. The in vitro culture system of this study has offered a defined condition to study the protozoan parasite-host cell interactions.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.195-198
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• 2006

Lethal toxin is a critical virulence factor of anthrax. It is composed two protein: protective antigen (PA) and lethal factor (LF). PA binds to specific cell surface receptors and, forms a membrane channel that mediates entry of LF into the cell. LF is a zinc-dependent metalloprotease, which cleaves MKKs [MAPK (mitogen-activated protein kinase) kinases] at peptide bonds very close to their N-termini. In this study, we suggest application of cell-based assays in the early phase of drug discovery, with a particular focus on the use of yeast cells. We constructed MEK1 expression system in yeast to determine LF activity and approached cell-based assay system to screen inhibitors, in which the results covering the construction of LF-substrate in yeast expression vector, expression, and LF-mediated proteolysis of substrate were described. These results could provided the basic steps in design of cell-based assay system with the high efficiency, rapidly and easy way to screening of inhibitors.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.39 no.7
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• pp.557-565
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• 2016

The paired immunoglobulin-like type 2 receptor (PILR) family consists of two functionally opposite members, inhibitory $PILR{\alpha}$ and activating $PILR{\beta}$ receptors. PILRs are widely expressed in various immune cells and interact with their ligands, especially CD99 expressed on activated T cells, to participate in immune responses. Here we investigated whether PILR-derived agonists inhibit ${\beta}1$ integrin activity as ligands for CD99. PILR-derived peptides as well as PILR-Fc fusion proteins prevented cell adhesion to fibronectin through the regulation of ${\beta}1$ integrin activity. Especially, PILRpep3, a representative 3-mer peptide covering the conserved motifs of the PILR extracellular domain, prevented the clustering and activation of ${\beta}1$ integrin by dephosphorylating FAK and vinculin, which are major components of focal adhesion. In addition, PILRpep3 inhibited transendothelial migration of monocytes as well as endothelial cell tube formation. Furthermore, upon intraperitoneal injection of PILRpep3 into mice with collagen-induced arthritis, the inflammatory response of rheumatoid arthritis was strongly suppressed. Taken together, these results suggest that PILR-derived agonist ligands may prevent the inflammatory reactions of rheumatoid arthritis by activating CD99.