• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.16 no.7
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• pp.1017-1025
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• 2006

Hantaviruses possess three RNA segments of negative sense. Co-infection of closely related hantaviruses may result in generation of a progeny virus with genomic polyploidy, containing a partial or complete set of genome originated from more than one parental virus. To characterize the formation of viral genomic polyploidy, cultured Vero-E6 cells were co-infected with two closely related hantaviruses, Hantaan and Maaji, and the progeny viruses examined. The genotype of plaque-purified viruses was analyzed by a virus-specific RT-PCR. Seventy percent (67/96) of the progeny virus was categorized as Hantaan and 3.3% (2/96) was classified as Maaji, whereas 20% (21/96) was considered polyploidy as they contained both types of the S RNA segment. Most of the polyploidy progeny viruses were unstable and gave rise to either one of the parental viruses or a reassortant after several rounds of plaque purification. No recombination between the heterologous pair of S RNA was observed for those polyploid viruses during three consecutive plaque-to-plaque passages. These data suggest that the viral polyploidy formation constitutes a primary mechanism underlying the generation of a newly emerged hantavirus.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.16 no.7
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• pp.1026-1031
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• 2006

The optimization of the production of a fusion protein containing the antigenic domain 1 (AD-1) is of a great importance, considering its use in diagnostic tests. The fusion protein is produced by the fermentation of a recombinant strain of Escherichia coli containing the plasmid Mbg58, which expresses the AD-1 (aa 484-650) of human cytomegalovirus glycoprotein B as a fusion protein together with aa 1-375 of ${\beta}-galactosidase$. An important characteristic of promoters (lac and derivatives) used in recombinant protein production in E. coli is their inducibility. Induction by IPTG is widely used for basic research; however, its use in large-scale production is undesirable because of its high cost and toxicity. In this work, studies using different inducers and carbon sources for the production of a fusion protein containing the AD-l were performed. The results showed that lactose could be used as an inducer in the fermentation process for the production of this protein, and that expression levels could exceed those achieved with IPTG. The use of lactose for protein expression in E. coli should be extremely useful for the inexpensive, large-scale production of heterologous proteins in E. coli. Addition of sucrose to the fermentation medium improved the yield of recombinant protein, whereas addition of fructose or trehalose decreased the yield.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.928-933
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• 2007

Cameleon is a genetically engineered $Ca^{2+}$ sensing molecule consisting of two variants of the green fluorescent protein (GFP), calmodulin and calmodulin-binding protein, M13. HEK-293 cells stably expressing three types of cameleons, yellow cameleon-2, cameleon-3er, and cameleon-2nu, were constructed, and the expression and localization of these cameleons were confirmed by fluorescent imaging. Among the cameleons, the yellow cameleon-2 was selected for analyzing the change in $Ca^{2+}$ induced by the olfactory receptor-mediated signal transduction, because it is localized in the cytosol and binds to cytosolic $Ca^{2+}$ ions. Cells stably expressing yellow cameleon-2 were transfected with each of the test olfactory receptor genes, odr-10 and 17, and the expression of the olfactory receptor genes were examined using immunocytochenmical methods and RT-PCR. Stimulating each olfactory receptor with its specific odorant caused an increase in the intracellular $Ca^{2+}$ level, which was measured using yellow cameleon-2. These results demonstrate that yellow cameleon-2 can be conveniently used to examine the function of the olfactory receptors expressed in heterologous cells.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.1018-1023
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• 2007

Bacillus subtilis CH3-5 was isolated from cheonggukjang prepared according to traditional methods. CH3-5 secreted at least four different fibrinolytic proteases (63, 47, 29, and 20 kDa) into the culture medium. A fibrinolytic enzyme gene, aprE2, encoding a 29kDa enzyme was cloned from the genomic DNA of CH3-5, and the DNA sequence determined. aprE2 was overexpressed in heterologous B. subtilis strains deficient in extracellular proteases using a E. coli-Bacillus shuttle vector. A 29 kDa AprE2 band was observed and AprE2 seemed to exhibit higher activities towards fibrin rather than casein.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.24 no.9
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• pp.1238-1244
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• 2014

Dephosphocoenzyme A (CoaE) catalyzes the last step in the biosynthesis of the cofactor coenzyme A. In this study, we report the identification and application of CoaE from Stretomyces peucetius ATCC27952. After expression of coaE, the protein was found to have a molecular mass of 28.6 kDa. Purification of the His-tagged fused CoaE protein was done by immobilized metal-affinity chromatography, and then in vitro enzymatic coupling assay was performed. The increasing NADH consumption with time shed light on the phosphorylating activity of CoaE. Furthermore, the overexpression of coaA and coaE independently under the $ermE^*$ promoter in the doxorubicin -producing wild type strain, resulted in 1.4- and 1.5-fold enhancements in doxorubicin production, respectively. In addition, the overexpression of both genes together showed a 2.1-fold increase in doxorubicin production. These results established a positive role for secondary metabolite production from Streptomyces peucetius.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.121-127
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• 2009

Sequencing analysis of a 5-kb DNA fragment from Streptomyces venezuelae ATCC 15439 revealed the presence of one 3.1-kb open reading frame(ORF), designated as afsR-sv. The deduced product of afsR-sv(1,056 aa) was found to have high homology with the global regulatory protein AfsR. Homology-based analysis showed that aftR-sv represents a transcriptional activator belonging to the Streptomyces antibiotic regulatory protein(SARP) family that includes an N-terminal SARP domain containing a bacterial transcriptional activation domain(BTAD), an NB-ARC domain, and a C-terminal tetratricopeptide repeat domain. Gene expression analysis by reverse transcriptase PCR(RT-PCR) demonstrated the activation of transcription of genes belonging to pikromycin production, when aftR-sv was overexpressed in S. venezuelae. Heterologous expression of the aftR-sv in different Streptomyces strains resulted in increased production of the respective antibiotics, suggesting that afsR-sv is a positive regulator of antibiotics biosynthesis.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.19 no.9
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• pp.972-981
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• 2009

In this paper, a fed-batch cultivation process in recombinant Escherichia coli BL21(DE3) bacteria, for the production of human soluble catechol-O-methyltransferase (hSCOMT), is presented. For the first time, a straightforward model is applied in a recombinant hSCOMT expression system and distinguishes an initial cell growth phase from a protein production phase upon induction. Specifically, the kinetic model predicts biomass, substrate, and product concentrations in the culture over time and was identified from a series of fed-batch experiments designed by testing several feed profiles. The main advantage of this model is that its parameters can be identified more reliably from distinct fed-batch strategies, such as glycerol pulses and exponential followed by constant substrate additions. Interestingly, with the limited amount of data available, the proposed model accomplishes satisfactorily the experimental results obtained for the three state variables, and no exhaustive process knowledge is required. The comparison of the measurement data obtained in a validation experiment with the model predictions showed the great extrapolation capability of the model presented, which could provide new complementary information for the COMT production system.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.819-822
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• 2003

Polyketides are an extensive class of secondary metabolites with diverse molecular structures and biological activities. A plasmid-based minimal polyketide synthase (PKS) expression cassette was constructed using a subset of actinorhodin (act) biosynthetic genes (actI-orfl, actI-orf2, actI-orf3, actIII, actⅦ, and actIV) from Streptomyces coelicolor, which specify the construction of an orange-fluorescent anthraquinone product aloesaponarin II, a type II polyketide compound derived from one acetyl coenzyme A and 7 malonyl coenzyme A extender units. This system was designed as an indicator pathway in S. parvulus to generate a hybrid type II polyketide compound via gene-specific replacement. The act ${\beta}-ketoacyl$ synthase unit (actI-orfl and actI-orf2) in the expression cassette was specifically replaced with oxytetracycline ${\beta}-ketoacyl$ synthase otcY-orfl and otcY-orf2). This plasmid-based hybrid PKS cassette generated a novel orange-fluorescent compound structurally different from aloesaponarin II in both S. lividans and S. parvulus. In addition, several additional distinctive blue-fluorescent compounds were detected, when this hybrid PKS cassette was expressed in S. coelicolor B78 (actI-orf2 mutant), implying that the expression of plasmid-based hybrid PKS cassette in Streptomyces species should be an efficient way of generating hybrid type II polyketide compounds.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.22 no.9
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• pp.1279-1287
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• 2012

We established an efficient transformation method for thermophile Geobacillus kaustophilus HTA426 using conjugative transfer from Escherichia coli of host-mimicking plasmids that imitate DNA methylation of strain HTA426 to circumvent its DNA restriction barriers. Two conjugative plasmids, pSTE33T and pUCG18T, capable of shuttling between E. coli and Geobacillus spp., were constructed. The plasmids were first introduced into E. coli BR408, which expressed one inherent DNA methylase gene (dam) and two heterologous methylase genes from strain HTA426 (GK1380-GK1381 and GK0343-GK0344). The plasmids were then directly transferred from E. coli cells to strain HTA426 by conjugative transfer using pUB307 or pRK2013 as a helper plasmid. pUCG18T was introduced very efficiently (transfer efficiency, $10^{-5}-10^{-3}\;recipient^{-1}$). pSTE33T showed lower efficiency ($10^{-7}-10^{-6}\;recipient^{-1}$) but had a high copy number and high segregational stability. Methylase genes in the donor substantially affected the transfer efficiency, demonstrating that the host-mimicking strategy contributes to efficient transformation. The transformation method, along with the two distinguishing plasmids, increases the potential of G. kaustophilus HTA426 as a thermophilic host to be used in various applications and as a model for biological studies of this genus. Our results also demonstrate that conjugative transfer is a promising approach for introducing exogenous DNA into thermophiles.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.29 no.11
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• pp.1717-1728
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• 2019

The gene encoding β-galactosidase was cloned from Bifidobacterium longum RD47 with combinations of several bifidobacterial promoters, and expressed in B. bifidum BGN4. Among the recombinant bifidobacteria, BGN4+G1 showed the highest β-galactosidase level, for which the hydrolytic activity was continuously 2.5 to 4.2 times higher than that of BGN4 and 4.3 to 9.6 times higher than that of RD47. The β-galactosidase activity of BGN4+G1 was exceedingly superior to that of any of the other 35 lactic acid bacteria. When commercial whole milk and BGN4+G1 were reacted, BGN4+G1 removed nearly 50% of the lactose in the milk by the 63-h time point, and a final 61% at 93 h. These figures are about twice the lactose removal rate of conventional fermented milk. As for the reaction of commercial whole milk and crude enzyme extract from BGN4+G1, the β-galactosidase of BGN4+G1 eliminated 51% of the lactose in milk in 2 h. As shown below, we also compared the strengths and characteristics of the strong bifidobacterial promoters reported by previous studies.