• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.134-139
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• 2004

Hybrid cluster protein (HCP) was investigated because of its unique iron-sulfur clusters, which have been found in bacteria and archaea. Here, HCP homologous proteins from the third domain, 'eukarya'(3 amitochondriate protozoans, Giardia lamblia, Entamoeba histolytica, and Trichomonas vaginalis), were identified. All three amitochondriate protozoan HCPs (GlHCP, EhHCP, and TvHCP) belonged to Class I on the basis of two key characters, the cysteine spacing, Cys-(Xaa)₂Cys(Xaa)/sub 7-8/-Cys(Xaa)/sub 5/-Cys, and the absence of N-terminal deletion characteristic to the Class III. In phylogenetic analysis performed with amino acid sequences of 3 eukaryal, 5 bacterial, and 4 archaeal HCPs, the maximum likelihood (ML) tree indicated that TvHCP was clustered with Class I HCPs, whereas the other two HCPs (GlHCP and EhHCP) formed an independent clade with a high bootstrapping value (96%) not belonging to any previously recognized HCP class. In spite of the relatively lower bootstrapping value (61%), the position of the new eukaryal GlHCP-EhHCP clade was close to Class I, including the TvHCP, and Classes II and III were closely related with each other. The finding of eukaryal HCPs would help to understand the evolutionary history of HCP.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Bioinformatics Conference
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• 2004.11a
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• pp.265-271
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• 2004

The interaction network of protein -protein plays an important role to understand the various biological functions of cells. Currently, the high -throughput experimental techniques (two -dimensional gel electrophoresis, mass spectroscopy, yeast two -hybrid assay) provide us with the vast amount of data for protein-protein interaction at the proteome scale. In order to recognize the role of each protein in their network, the efficient bioinformatical and computational analysis methods are required. We propose a systematic and mathematical method which can analyze the protein -protein interaction network rigorously and enable us to capture the biological and physical essence of a topological character and stability of protein -protein network, and sensitivity of each protein along the biological pathway of their network. We set up a Laplacian matrix of spectral graph theory based on the protein-protein network of yeast proteome, and perform an eigenvalue analysis and apply a perturbation method on a Laplacian matrix, which result in recognizing the center of protein cluster, the identity of hub proteins around it and their relative sensitivities. Identifying the topology of protein -protein network via a Laplacian matrix, we can recognize the important relation between the biological pathway of yeast proteome and the formalism of master equation. The results of our systematic and mathematical analysis agree well with the experimental findings of yeast proteome. The biological function and meaning of each protein cluster can be explained easily. Our rigorous analysis method is robust for understanding various kinds of networks whether they are biological, social, economical...etc

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.08a
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• pp.91-91
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• 2013

Imagine a world where we could biomanufacture hybrid nanomaterials having atomic-scale resolution over functionality and architecture. Toward this vision, a fundamental challenge in materials science is how to design and synthesize protein-like material that can be fully self-assembled and exhibit information-specific process. In an ongoing effort to extend the fundamental understanding of protein structure to non-natural systems, we have designed a class of short peptides to fold like proteins and assemble into defined nanostructures. In this talk, I will talk about new strategies to drive the self-assembled structures designing sequence of peptide. I will also discuss about the specific interaction between proteins and inorganics that can be used for the development of new hybrid solar energy devices. Splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen is one of the promising pathways for solar to energy convertsion and storage system. The oxygen evolution reaction (OER) has been regarded as a major bottleneck in the overall water splitting process due to the slow transfer rate of four electrons and the high activation energy barrier for O-O bond formation. In nature, there is a water oxidation complex (WOC) in photosystem II (PSII) comprised of the earthabundant elements Mn and Ca. The WOC in photosystem II, in the form of a cubical CaMn4O5 cluster, efficiently catalyzes water oxidation under neutral conditions with extremely low overpotential (~160 mV) and a high TOF number. The cluster is stabilized by a surrounding redox-active peptide ligand, and undergo successive changes in oxidation state by PCET (proton-coupled electron transfer) reaction with the peptide ligand. It is fundamental challenge to achieve a level of structural complexity and functionality that rivals that seen in the cubane Mn4CaO5 cluster and surrounding peptide in nature. In this presentation, I will present a new strategy to mimic the natural photosystem. The approach is based on the atomically defined assembly based on the short redox-active peptide sequences. Additionally, I will show a newly identified manganese based compound that is very close to manganese clusters in photosystem II.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.32 no.12
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• pp.4195-4198
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• 2011

Intramolecular ${\pi}-{\pi}$ and ${\sigma}-{\pi}$ interactions are omnipresent for numerous energetic and structural phenomena in nature, and the exact description of these nonbonding interactions plays an important role in the accurate prediction of the three-dimensional structures for numerous interesting molecular systems such as protein folding and polymer shaping. We have selected two prototype molecular systems for benchmarking calculations of intramolecular ${\pi}-{\pi}$ and ${\sigma}-{\pi}$ interactions. Accurately describing conformational energy of such systems requires highly elaborate but very expensive ab initio methods such as coupled cluster singles, doubles, and (triples) (CCSD(T)). Our calculations reveal a double hybrid density functional incorporating dispersion correction (B2PLYP-D) that agrees excellently with the CCSD(T) results, indicating that B2PLYP-D can serve as a practical method of choice.

• 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.

• Mycobiology
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.254-257
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• 2022

Wolfiporia cocos is a wood-decay brown rot fungus belonging to the family Polyporaceae. While the fungus grows, the sclerotium body of the strain, dubbed Bokryeong in Korean, is formed around the roots of conifer trees. The dried sclerotium has been widely used as a key component of many medicinal recipes in East Asia. Wolfiporia cocos strain KMCC03342 is the reference strain registered and maintained by the Korea Seed and Variety Service for commercial uses. Here, we present the first draft genome sequence of W. cocos KMCC03342 using a hybrid assembly technique combining both short- and long-read sequences. The genome has a total length of 55.5 Mb comprised of 343 contigs with N50 of 332 kb and 95.8% BUSCO completeness. The GC ratio was 52.2%. We predicted 14,296 protein-coding gene models based on ab initio gene prediction and evidence-based annotation procedure using RNAseq data. The annotated genome was predicted to have 19 terpene biosynthesis gene clusters, which was the same number as the previously sequenced W. cocos strain MD-104 genome but higher than Chinese W. cocos strains. The genome sequence and the predicted gene clusters allow us to study biosynthetic pathways for the active ingredients of W. cocos.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF CROP SCIENCE
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• v.51 no.spc1
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• pp.185-192
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• 2006

This experiment was conducted to assess genetic diversity of waxy corn inbred lines and to identify SSR markers related to major characteristics affected kernel quality for improving waxy corn $F_1$ hybrid with good quality. Diversity of 64 waxy com inbred lines was evaluated using 30 microsatellite markers. The 30 microsatellite markers representing 30 loci in the maize genome detected polymorphisms among the 64 inbred lines and revealed 225 alleles with a mean of 7.5 alleles per primer. The polymorphism Information content (PIC) value ranged from 0.14 to 0.87, with an average of 0.69. Based on Nei's genetic distances, the 64 inbred lines were classified into 9 groups by the cluster analysis. The group I included 26 inbred lines (41%), other groups included 3 to 9 inbred lines. One-way analysis of variance was conducted to identify significant relationship between individual markers and major characteristics that affect kernel quality. The analysis showed that umc1019 was related to amylopectin and crude protein content, me 1020 to amylopectin content and peak viscosity, and bnlg1537 to 100-kernel weight, kernel length, and kernel width.