• Food Science and Preservation
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.429-433
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• 2002

The D-xylulokinase from Candida sp. L-16 was purified through a sequence of ammonium sulfate fractionation, DEAE-cellulose chromatography, Sephadex G-100 and Sephadex G-200 gel filtration. The specific activity of the purified Dxylulokinase was increased to 23.2 fold and the yield was 11.2%. The enzyme was showed to be a single protein band by SDS-PAGE. The molecular weight of the enzyme was 150,000 dalton, this enzyme was identified to be a dimer with two subunits. The optimum conditions of the enzyme were pH 8.0 and 40$\^{C}$, respectively. The enzyme was relatively stable between pH 7.0 to pH 9.0, but it was unstable over 30$\^{C}$. The enzyme showed substrate specificity on D-xylulose, D-arabinose and D-ribose, Km value and Vmax for D-xylulose were 0.042 mM and 117 units/ml, respectively. The activation energy of the enzyme was 4.75 Kcal/mol. The one was inhibited by metabolic intermediates such as 6-phosphogluconic acid, 2-keto-gluconic acid. The enzyme was activated by EDTA and thiol compounds such as cysteine-HCI, DTT and glutathione.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.385-392
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• 1996

Bacillus stearotheymophilus, a potent xylanolytic bacterium isolated from soil, was tested for the strain's strategies of pentose utilization and the evidence of substrate preferences. The strain metabolized glucose, xylose, ribose, maltose, cellobiose, sucrose, arabinose and xylitol. The efficacy of the sugars as a carbon and energy source in this strain was of the order named above. The organism, however, could not grow on glycerol as a sole growth substrate. During cultivation on a mixture of glucose and xylose or arabinose, the major hydrolytic products of xylan, B. stearothermophilus displayed classical diauxic growth in which glucose was utilized during the first phase. On the other hand, the pentose utilization was prevented immediately upon addition of glucose. Cellobiose was preferred over xylose or arabinose. In contrast, maltose and pentose were co-utilized, and also no preference on between xylose and arabinose. Enzymatic studies indicated that B. stearothermophilus possessed constitutive hexokinase, a key enzyme of the glucose metabolic system. While, the production of $^{D}$-xylose isomerase, $^{D}$-xylulokinase and $^{D}$-arabinose isomerase essential for pentose phosphate pathway were induced by xylose, xylan, and xylitol but repressed by glucose. Taken together, the results suggested that the sequential utilization of B. stearothermophilus would be mediated by catabolite regulatory mechanisms such as catabolite inhibition or inducer exclusion.