• BMB Reports
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• 제42권6호
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• pp.315-323
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• 2009

In order to elucidate ultimate biological function of the genome, the model animal system carrying mutations is indispensable. Recently, large-scale mutagenesis projects have been launched in various species. Especially, the mouse is considered to be an ideal model to human because it is a mammalian species accompanied with well-established genetic as well as embryonic technologies. In 1990', large-scale mouse mutagenesis projects firstly initiated with a potent chemical mutagen, N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea (ENU) by the phenotype-driven approach or forward genetics. The knockout mouse mutagenesis projects with trapping/conditional mutagenesis have then followed as Phase II since 2006 by the gene-driven approach or reverse genetics. Recently, the next-generation gene targeting system has also become available to the research community, which allows us to establish and analyze mutant mice carrying an allelic series of base substitutions in target genes as another reverse genetics. Overall trends in the large-scale mouse mutagenesis will be reviewed in this article particularly focusing on the new advancement of the next-generation gene targeting system. The drastic expansion of the mutant mouse resources altogether will enhance the systematic understanding of the life. The construction of the mutant mouse resources developed by the forward and reverse genetic mutagenesis is just the beginning of the annotation of mammalian genome. They provide basic infrastructure to understand the molecular mechanism of the gene and genome and will contribute to not only basic researches but also applied sciences such as human disease modelling, genomic medicine and personalized medicine.

• BMB Reports
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• 제37권1호
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• pp.122-132
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• 2004

The rapid development and characterization of the mouse genome sequence, coupled with comparative sequence analysis of human, has been paralleled by a reinforced enthusiasm for mouse functional genomics. The way to uncover the in vivo function of genes is to analyze the phenotypes of the mutant animals. From this standpoint, the mouse is a suitable and valuable model organism in the studies of functional genomics. Therefore, there have been enormous efforts to enrich the list of the mutant mice. Such a trend emphasizes the random mutagenesis, including ENU mutagenesis and gene-trap mutagenesis, to obtain a large stock of mutant mice. However, since various mutant alleles are needed to precisely characterize the role of a gene in vivo, mutations should be designed. The simplicity and utility of transgenic technology can satisfy this demand. The combination of RNA interference with transgenic technology will provide more opportunities for researchers. Nevertheless, gene targeting can solely define the in vivo function of a gene without a doubt. Thus, transgenesis and gene targeting will be the major strategies in the field of functional genomics.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• 제37권2호
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• pp.115-124
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• 2010

As the completion of genome sequencing, large collection of expression data and the great efforts in annotating plant genomes, the next challenge is to systematically assign functions to all predicted genes in the genome. Functional genome analysis of plants has entered the high-throughput stage. The generations and collections of mutants at the genome-wide level form technological platform of functional genomics. However, to identify the exact function of unknown genes it is necessary to understand each gene's role in the complex orchestration of all gene activities in the plant cell. Gene function analysis therefore necessitates the analysis of temporal and spatial gene expression patterns. The most conclusive information about changes in gene expression levels can be gained from analysis of the varying qualitative and quantitative changes of messenger RNAs, proteins and metabolites. New technologies have been developed to allow fast and highly parallel measurements of these constituents of the cell that make up gene activity. We have reviewed currently employed technologies to identify unknown functions of predicted genes including map-based cloning, insertional mutagenesis, reverse genetics, chemical mutagenesis, microarray analysis, FOX-hunting system, gene silencing mutagenesis, proteomics and chemical genomics. Recent improvements in technologies for functional genomics enable whole-genome functional analysis, and thus open new avenues for studies of the regulations and functions of unknown genes in plants.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• 제19권3호
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• pp.217-228
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• 2009

Mobile genetic segments, or transposons, are also referred to as jumping genes as they can shift from one position in the genome to another, thus inducing a chromosomal mutation. According to the target site-specificity of the transposon during a transposition event, the result is either the insertion of a gene of interest at a specific chromosomal site, or the creation of knockout mutants. The former situation includes the integration of conjugative transposons via site-specific recombination, several transposons preferring a target site of a conserved AT-rich sequence, and Tn7 being site-specifically inserted at attTn7, the downstream of the essential glmS gene. The latter situation is exploited for random mutagenesis in many prokaryotes, including IS (insertion sequence) elements, mariner, Mu, Tn3 derivatives (Tn4430 and Tn917), Tn5, modified Tn7, Tn10, Tn552, and Ty1, enabling a variety of genetic manipulations. Randomly inserted transposons have been previously employed for a variety of applications such as genetic footprinting, gene transcriptional and translational fusion, signature-tagged mutagenesis (STM), DNA or cDNA sequencing, transposon site hybridization (TraSH), and scanning linker mutagenesis (SLM). Therefore, transposon-mediated genetic engineering is a valuable discipline for the study of bacterial physiology and pathogenesis in living hosts.

• BMB Reports
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• 제32권6호
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• pp.554-560
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• 1999

TTD1BI cells are non-hypersensitive to UV irradiation and perform normal genome repair of pyrimidine dimers but fail to excise 6-4 photoproducts and, concomitantly, are unable to restore RNA synthesis levels following UV irradiation. This pointed to a detect in gene-specific repair and this study was undertaken to examine repair of 6-4 photoproducts at the gene-level. The results indicated a defect in gene-specific repair of 6-4 photoproducts in active genes, although strand-specificity of 6-4 photoproduct removal was essentially similar to that of normal cells. These findings indicate that the near normal UV resistance of TTD1BI cells may be due to the inability of these cells to remove DNA lesions preferentially, as well as to the cells opting out of the cell cycle to repair damage before resuming replication.

• BMB Reports
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• 제31권3호
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• pp.254-257
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• 1998

The gshI gene from the Escherichia coli K-12 strain codes for ${\gamma}-glutamylcysteine$ synthetase which mediates the rate-limiting step of glutathione biosynthesis. The isolated gshI gene from E. coli K-12 has an unusual translation initiation codon, UUG. The 494th amino acid is Ala rather than Gly which was found in a mutant strain E. coli B. In order to improve the translational rate of the gshI gene of E. coli K-12, the initiation codon, UUG, was changed to the usual AUG codon by the site-specific mutagenesis. This change has resulted in a 53% increase of ${\gamma}-glutamylcysteine$ synthetase activity. The enzyme activity was also improved by replacing $Ala^{494}$ with Val (A494V) or Leu (A494L). The replacement of $Ser^{495}$ with Thr (S495T) also resulted in a 62% increase of the enzyme activity. Therefore, the specific activity of ${\gamma}-glutamylcysteine$ synthetase was increased with the increasing chain length of the aliphathic amino acid at the site of the 494th amino acid (Ala<$Val{\leq}Leu$).

• 한국미생물·생명공학회지
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• 제26권5호
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• pp.387-392
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• 1998

B. lactofermentum의 lysine 생합성에 있어서 DDH경로 및 ddh gene이 지닌 중요성을 조사하기 위하여, site-specific mutagenesis technique를 통하여 B. lactofermentum의 ddh gene을 disruption함으로서 DDH 경로를 차단시켰다. B. lactofermentum ddh mutant는 wild type 및 AEC내성 균주보다 성장이 매우 저조하였으며 lysine 생산량에서도 급격한 저하를 가져왔다. 이와 같이 B. lactofermentum이 DAP 경로만을 가졌을 때 세포의 성장 및 lysine 생산량에 있어서 극적인 저하를 가져왔기 때문에 B. lactofermentum에서의 DDH 경로는 meso-DAP 및 lysine 생합성에 있어 필수적인 경로로 작용한다는 것을 확인하였다. 그러므로 C. glutamicum과 B. lactofermentum과 같은 corynebacteria가 lysine을 많이 생산하는 것은 DDH 경로가 부가적으로 존재하기 때문이며, 이러한 DDH 경로는 metabolic flux가 증가되면 중간 대사물을 lysine으로 변화시키는 중요한 경로로 작용할 것이라 사료된다.

• 한국미생물·생명공학회지
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• 제19권3호
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• pp.222-227
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• 1991

Rhizobium fredii USDA193은 대두(Peking)의 근모 세포벽에 침투하여 근류를 형성한다. 본 실험에서는 전보 (1)에서 분리 보고한 R.fredii의 pectate lyase 유전자 clone(SY1)으로부터 $\Omega$변이를 시켰다. 이것을 R.fredii USDA193에 다시 marker-exchange시켜 얻은 변이주(R.fredii USDA193$\Omega$와 R.fredii USDA193omega1)의 pectate lyase 활성이 완전히 block되지 못하였다. R.fredii 내에서는 다른 종류의 pel 유전자가 존재하 것으로 생각되며 pelB 및 pelE의 Rhizobium mutants들은 근류형성 초기단계에서 직접적으로 영향을 미치지 못하였다.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• 제19권9호
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• pp.869-872
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• 2009

The cyclic undecapeptide cyclosporin A (CyA), one of the most valuable immunosuppressive drugs, is produced nonribosomally by a multifunctional cyclosporin synthetase enzyme complex by the filamentous fungus Tolypocladium niveum. To increase CyA productivity by wild-type T. niveum (ATCC 34921), random mutagenesis was first performed using an antifungal agar-plug colony assay (APCA) selection approach. This generated a mutant strain producing more than 9-fold greater CyA than the wild-type strain. Additionally, a foreign bacterial gene, Vitreoscilla hemoglobin gene (VHb), was transformed via protoplast regeneration and its transcription was confirmed by RT-PCR in the UV-irradiated mutant cell. This led to an additional 33.5% increase of CyA production. Although most protoplast-regenerated T. niveum transformants tend to lose CyA productivity, the optimized combination of random mutagenesis and protoplast transformation described here should be an efficient strategy to generate a commercially valuable, yet metabolite low-producing, fungal species, such as CyA-producing T. niveum.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• 제25권3호
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• pp.205-212
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• 2009

Colletotrichum acutatum was the main cause of the recent outbreaks of anthracnose on pepper fruit in Korea. To facilitate molecular analysis of C. acutatum, we generated an arginine auxotrophic mutant of the C acutatum strain JC24 using a targeted gene replacement strategy. A 3.3-kb genomic region carrying an ortholog (designated CaARG2) of the fungal gene encoding N-acetylglutamate synthase, the first enzyme of arginine biosynthesis in fungi, was deleted from the fungal genome. The mutant exhibited normal growth only when arginine was exogenously supplied into the culture medium. Transformation of the arginine auxotrophic mutant with a plasmid DNA carrying an intact copy of CaARG2, which was smaller than the deleted region in the mutant, not only caused random vector insertions in the fungal genome, but also recovered both hyphal growth and pathogenicity of the mutant to the wild-type level. Using this new selection system, we have successfully developed a restriction enzyme-mediated integration procedure, which would provide an economically efficient random mutagenesis method in C. acutatum.