• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.880-890
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• 2024

The immunomodulatory effects of Euglena gracilis (Euglena) and its bioactive component, β-1,3-glucan (paramylon), have been clarified through various studies. However, the detailed mechanisms of the immune regulation remain to be elucidated. This study was designed not only to investigate the immunomodulatory effects but also to determine the genetic mechanisms of Euglena and β-glucan in cyclophosphamide (CCP)-induced immunosuppressed mice. The animals were orally administered saline, Euglena (800 mg/kg B.W.) or β-glucan (400 mg/kg B.W.) for 19 days, and CCP (80 mg/kg B.W.) was subsequently administered to induce immunosuppression in the mice. The mice exhibited significant decreases in body weight, organ weight, and the spleen index. However, there were significant improvements in the spleen weight and the spleen index in CCP-induced mice after the oral administration of Euglena and β-glucan. Transcriptome analysis of the splenocytes revealed immune-related differentially expressed genes (DEGs) regulated in the Euglena- and β-glucantreated groups. Gene ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analyses indicated that pathways related with interleukin (IL)-17 and cAMP play significant roles in regulating T cells, B cells, and inflammatory cytokines. Additionally, Ptgs2, a major inflammatory factor, was exclusively expressed in the Euglena-treated group, suggesting that Euglena's beneficial components, such as carotenoids, could regulate these genes by influencing immune lymphocytes and inflammatory cytokines in CCP-induced mice. This study validated the immunomodulatory effects of Euglena and highlighted its underlying mechanisms, suggesting a positive contribution to the determination of phenotypes associated with immune-related diseases and the research and development of immunotherapies.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.1047-1053
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• 2005

Cyclosporin A binding protein type-19 kDa peptidyl-prolyl cis/trans isomerase (PPIases, EC 5.2.1.8) of Euglena gracilis was purified and some of its biochemical characters were elucidated. Purification of the PPIase was achieved by employing a series of steps involving ammonium sulfate precipitation, Superdex G-75 gel filtration chromatography, Mono­Q anion and Mono-S cation exchange chromatographies, and Superdex S-200 gel filtration chromatography on FPLC. Purified PPIase had a specific activity of 8,250 units/mg, showing a 27-fold increase compared with that of cell-free extract of Euglena gracilis. The enzyme consisted of a single polypeptide chain with a molecular mass of 19 kDa. It showed high substrate specificity to succinyl-Ala-Ala-Pro-Phe-p-nitroanilide, and $k_{car}/K_{m}$, for this substrate was found to be $61.19{\times}10^5/sec$. The isomer distributions were investigated at an equilibrium of seven different peptide substrates, varying Xaa in Suc-Ala-Xaa-Pro-Phe-p-nitroanilide in dimethylsulfoxide. The cis/trans equilibrium constants were estimated to be from 0.14 (Ile) to 0.63 (Gly), which correspond to $12.00\%\;to\;38.52\%$ of the cis population, respectively, under experimental condition. The enzyme was highly sensitive to the immunosuppressive ligand cyclosporin A, but not to other immunosuppressants such as FK506 and rapamycin. Thus, it appears to belong to the class of cyclophilin.

• Journal of Photoscience
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.98-101
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• 2002

Euglena gracilis abruptly changes its swimming direction after a sudden increase or decrease in incident light intensity, that is, step-up or step-down photophobic responses, resulting in photoavoidance or photoaccumulation, respectively. To identify the photoreceptor molecules for these UV-A/blue-light type photobehaviors, we purified a flavoprotein from isolated putative photosencory organelles (PFBs) of Euglena. The purified flavoprotein, which noncovalently bound flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD), seemed to be a heterotetramer of alpha- and beta-subunits. Predicted amino acid sequences of each of the subunits were similar to each other and contained two FAD-binding domains each followed by an adenylyl cyclase catalytic domain. The purified flavoprotein actually showed adenylyl cyclase activity, being drastically elevated by blue-light irradiation. Suppression of gene expression of the flavoprotein (Photoactivated Adenylyl Cyclase, PAC) by RNA interference (RNAi) caused loss of the step-up photophobic response, demonstrating that PAC actually mediates photoavoidance of Euglena.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.73-78
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• 2001

The biological carbon dioxide fixation using microalgae and photo-bioreactor has been known as an effective carbon dioxide reduction technology. As algae has many other environmental factor for its growth, the desirable cultivation factors were investigated using a green alga, Euglena gracilis Z. In this study, Euglena gracilis Z showed good $CO_2$ fixation ability in high $CO_2$ concentration of 10-20% and it contained the high protein and vitamin E enough to be used as fodder. For the mass cultivation, the continuous and semi-continuous cultivation methods were employed. The optimum hydraulic retention time (HRT) for the continuous cultivation was 4 days at carbon dioxide concentration of 10%. In this condition, the final cell number was $3.57{\times}10^6/m{\ell}$. The growth of Euglena gracilis Z increased according to the light intensity.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.38-44
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• 2016

The quality and quantity of live food sources strongly influence the success of fish production in farming operations. Thus, critical studies of live forage species are a crucial element for progress in fish aquaculture. The fat content of food is an especially important determinant of growth in marine fish. Omega-3 highly unsaturated fatty acids (HUFA) are essential components of diet that determine the nutritional value of larval fish. Euglena is a protist that has potential as a forage species. These single-celled organisms have plant and animal characteristics they are motile, elliptical in shape and 15–500 μm in diameter. Their nutritional content is excellent, but most studies have focused on cells raised in autotrophic culture. We therefore examined differences in the lipid and fatty acid contents, and the growth of Euglena cells grown under autotrophic, heterotrophic, and mixotrophic conditions. Biomass production reached 15.03 g/L, 12.28 g/L, and 3.66 g/L under mixotrophy, heterotrophy, and autotrophy, respectively. The proportional n-3 HUFA content differed among culture methods: 10.04%, 5.80% and 10.01% in mixotrophic, heterotrophic and autotrophic cultures, respectively. Mixotrophy was to be the best form of cultivation for improving the growth and nutritional content of Euglena.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.30-37
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• 2016

Microalgae are functional foods because they contain special anti-aging inhibitors and other functional components, such as ecosapentaenoic acid (EPA), docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), and omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids. Many of these functional dietary components are absent in animals and terrestrial plants. Thus, microalgae are widely utilized in human functional foods and in the feed provided to farmed fish and terrestrial livestock. Many marine organisms consume microalgae, often because they are in an appropriate portion of the cell size spectrum, but also because of their nutritional content. The nutritional requirements of marine organisms differ from those of terrestrial animals. After hatching, marine animals need small live forage species that have high omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid contents, including EPA and DHA. Euglena cells have both plant and animal characteristics; they are motile, elliptical in shape, 15-500 μm in diameter, and have a valuable nutritional content. Mixotrophic cell cultivation provided the best growth rates and nutritional content. Diverse carbon (fructose, lactose, glucose, maltose and sucrose) and nitrogen (tryptone, peptone, yeast extract, urea and sodium glutamate) supported the growth of microalgae with high lipid contents. We found that the best carbon and nitrogen sources for the production of high quality Euglena cells were glucose (10 g L^–1) and sodium glutamate (1.0 g L^–1), respectively.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.124-131
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• 2016

The toxic responses of flagellate Euglena agilis Carter to 8 heavy metals (Ag, Cd, Cr (VI), Cu, Hg, Ni, Pb, Zn) were measured using E. agilis system (E-Tox), an automated biomonitoring system. The E-Tox measures cell movement parameters, such as velocity, motility, and forms of the cells, as biological endpoints. $EC_{50}$ values from the E. agilis biomonitoring test were compared with the literature data from the tests with Daphnia magna, Vibrio fischeri and Euglena gracilis. Measurement of the E. agilis movement behavior and D. magna acute toxicity test were also conducted for the wastewater samples. E. agilis is less sensitive than D. magna but is comparable to or more sensitive than V. fischeri and E. gracilis for the heavy metals tested in this study. E. agilis shows prompt changes of these parameters for the toxic metal plating wastewater. Major advantages of the E-tox are automatic, easy to handle and fast ecotoxicity monitoring system compared to other biological test systems. These results imply that E. agilis biomonitoring test using E-Tox can be a putative ecotoxicity test as a good early warning tool for the monitoring of toxic wastewater.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.306-310
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• 2008

Characteristics of microalgal growth was investigated using anaerobic effluent from two-phase animal waste digestor as substrate. Batch experiments were carried out to investigate the effect of the initial nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations on growth of Microcystis aeruginosa, Chlorella sp. and Euglena gracilis. In 400 times diluted anaerobic effluent (TN 3 mg/L), single cell growth of the Euglena gracilis population increased twice without delay, although Chlorella sp. and Microcystis aerugenos take over 144 hours. Similar appearance with single cell growth was observed in mixed cultures. However, microalgae population did not increase under condition of 10 times diluted influent (TP 3 mg/L) in both pure and mixed cultures, which was affected by high organic and nitrogen concentration. Logistic growth model successfully fitted to determine biokinetic parameters such as ${\lambda}$: lag time, ${\mu}m$: maximal specific growth rate, A: asymptote of growth.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.71-76
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• 2000

The biological carbon dioxide fixation using microalgae has been known as an effective carbon dioxide reduction technology. With many environmental factors influencing microalgal productivity, the desirable cultivation factors were investigated using a green alga, Euglena gracilis. It has the high protein and vitamin E to be used as fodder. In batch culture with a photobioreactor, initial pH, temperature, carbon dioxide concentration and light intensity in the optimum cultivation condition were 3.5, $27^{\circ}C$,5-10% and $520{\mu}mol/m^2/s$, respectively. After that, the optimum hydraulic retention time (HRT for the continuous cultivation was 4 days at carbon dioxide concentration of 10%. In this condition, the final dry cell weight was 1.2g/l.

• Journal of Plant Biology
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 1959

1) The comparative studies of the quantitative measurement of growth characteristics and utilization of substrates by Euglena gracilis var. bacilla 10616 in the light and in darkness have been carried out. Eodogenous respiration, effect of respiratory inhibitors and responses to the added substrates for the exogenous respiration are also investigated. 2) All cultures are grown in the open air under the continuous illumination of fluorescent light of 3500 lux at room termperature, the growth rate of the culture in the basal medium added 0.5% lactate is found to be the highest. The growth rate decreases successively for the cultures of 0.5% sucinate, 0.5% Na-acetate, 0.5% malate, and control. There is no growth in the basal meidum added 0.5% butyrate and 0.5% hydroquinone. The similar results are obtained for the mentioned cultures in the darkness. However, the growth rate in basal medium added 0.5% glucose and 0.5% sucrose does seem to increase in the darkness unlike the illumination. 3) The endogenous rate of respiration for the organism cultured photosynthetically is about 12.94ul 02/mg/hr, in basal medium and the respiratory quotient is about 0.84. The rate is decreased by starvations to 6.5ul 02/mg/hr, about to a half, but the respiratory quotient does net change. 4) The oxygen consomption during initial 2 hours in suspending solution ranging from pH 4.5 to pH 9.3 is highest at pH 4.5 in which the algae had grown, at pH 5.5 and at pH 6.9. 5) Endogenous respiration of the cells is strongly inhibited by 0.1M of potassium cyanide, malomic acid, sodium fluoride and iodo-acetic acid. It is also strongly inhibited by 0.01M of potassium cyanide. 6) The respiratory response to added substrates for the exogenous respiration in the organism is coincided with the rate in the basal medium added the substrate in light and in darkness, whether the cells are fed or starved. 7) According to the results of this study, there seems to be the flexibility of the interconversion between photosynthesis and chemosynthesis, heterotropic mode of metabolism, in Euglena gracilis var. bacillaris, and that this organism utilizes the lactate most. It also may be suggested that the enayme systems linked in the each steps of Embden-Myerhof-Parnas path way and TCA cycle seem to exist in this organism.