• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.25 no.3
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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.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.393-399
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• 1998

Enterobacter sp.B54 which shows antagonistic activity to Phytophthora capsici on potato dextrose agar was selected among 112 strains isolated from Korean soil. After Tn5 lac-induced mutants were obtained through Pl :: Tn5 lac mutagenesis, 2 mutants for loss of antibiosis and 1 mutant for increased antibiosis were screened by using in vitro fungal inhibition assay. When the 3 mutants affected in antibiosis were analyzed by southern hybridization with pRZ102 (ColEl :: Tn5) as a probe, its results suggest that Tn5 lac was randomly inserted into different chromosomal sites in these mutants.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.19 no.3
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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.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.974-978
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• 2006

The cytochrome P450 monooxygenase from the pikromycin biosynthetic gene cluster in Streptomyces venezuelae, known as PikC, was observed to hydroxylate the unnatural substrate indole to indigo. Furthermore, the site-directed mutagenesis of PikC monooxygenase led to the mutant enzyme F171Q, in which Phe171 was altered to Gln, with enhanced activity for the hydroxylation of indole. From enzyme kinetic studies, F171Q showed an approximately five-fold higher catalytic efficiency compared with the wild-type PikC. Therefore, these results demonstrate the promising application of P450s originating from Streptomyces, normally involved in polyketide biosynthesis, to generate a diverse array of other industrially useful compounds.

• Preventive Nutrition and Food Science
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.79-81
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• 2001

Deoxynucleoside kinases exist as heterodimeric pairs specific for deoxyadenosine/deoxyguanosine kinase (dAK/dGK) and deoxyadenosine/deoxycytidine kinase (dAK/dCK). The aspartic acid-84 in dGK was mutated to alanine, asparagine and glutamic acid by site-directed mutagenesis. The mutation resulted in a drastic decease in dGK activity compared to the unmodified cloned enzyme while it increased production of dAK activity. The mutated dak/dgk genes, which synthesize tandem deoxyadenosine/deoxyguanosine kinase, were inserted back to the Lactobacillus acidophilus and Lactococcus lactis by electroporation to determine the effect of site-directed mutation of he enzymes on the microbial growth. However, no significant change was observed in cell growth and lactic acid production between wild type and mutant lactic acid bacteria.

• The Journal of Natural Sciences
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.45-52
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• 1997

We have examined the effects of low concentrations of MNNG, alkylating agent, in survival and mutagenesis in Aspergillus nidulans. Pretreatments of cells with nontoxic and submutagenic doses of MNNG did not reduce the cytotoxic and mutagenic effects of exposure to a high concentration of drug. The results imply that adaptive responses on survival and mutagenesis for MNNG treatments do not occur in Aspergillus nidulans. In the first mitotic cell cycle during germination, the sensitivity to MNNG has been investigated at hourly time interval, and compared with that for UV irradiation. In both UV and MNNG treatments, the sensitivity increased till S cell stage, and decreased while DNA replication continued. Different from that show for UV irradiation, lethality to MNNG reached to the maximum at G2 cell stage.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.11-17
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• 2015

In an attempt to shift the optimal pH of the xylanase B (XynB) from Aspergillus niger towards alkalinity, target mutation sites were selected by alignment between Aspergillus niger xylanase B and other xylanases that have alkalophilic pH optima that highlight charged residues in the eight-residues-longer loop in the alkalophilic xylanase. Multiple engineered XynB mutants were created by site-directed mutagenesis with substitutions Q164K and Q164K+D117N. The variant XynB-117 had the highest optimum pH (at 5.5), which corresponded to a basic 0.5 pH unit shift when compared with the wild-type enzyme. However, the optimal pH of the XynB-164 mutation was not changed, similar to the wild type. These results suggest that the residues at positions 164 and 117 in the eight-residues-longer loop and the cleft's edge are important in determining the pH optima of XynB from Aspergillus niger.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.563-568
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• 2010

The Val289 residue in the $\alpha$-amylase of Bacillus amyloliquefaciens, which is equivalent to the Ala289 and Val286 residues in the $\alpha$-amylases of B. stearothermophilus and B. licheniformis, respectively, was studied by site-directed mutagenesis. This residue was substituted with 10 different amino acids by random substitution of the Val codon. In these mutant $\alpha$-amylases, Val289 was substituted with Ile, Tyr, Phe, Leu, Gly, Pro, Ser, Arg, Glu, and Asp. Compared with the wild-type $\alpha$-amylase, the mutant $\alpha$-amylase Val289Ile showed 20% more hydrolytic activity, whereas Val289Phe and Val289Leu showed 50% lesser activity. On the other hand, the mutant $\alpha$-amylases Val289Gly, Val289Tyr, Val289Ser, and Val289Pro showed less than 15% activity. The substitution of Val289 with Arg, Asp, or Glu resulted in complete loss of the $\alpha$-amylase activity. Interestingly, the mutant $\alpha$-amylase Val289Tyr had acquired a transglycosylation activity, which resulted in the change of product profile of the reaction, giving a longer oligosaccharide.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.365-374
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• 2005

To find potential targets of novel antimicrobial agents, we identified essential genes of Streptococcus pneumoniae using comparative genomics and allelic replacement mutagenesis. We compared the genome of S. pneumoniae R6 with those of Bacillus subtilis, Enterococcus faecalis, Escherichia coli, and Staphylococcus aureus, and selected 693 candidate target genes with > 40% amino acid sequence identity to the corresponding genes in at least two of the other species. The 693 genes were disrupted and 133 were found to be essential for growth. Of these, 32 encoded proteins of unknown function, and we were able to identify orthologues of 22 of these genes by genomic comparisons. The experimental method used in this study is easy to perform, rapid and efficient for identifying essential genes of bacterial pathogens.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.271-277
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• 1986

A sisomicin-producing strain, Micromonospora inyoensis, was treated with various mutagens. The optimal death rates to obtain the high-producers of sisomicin were 90% for ultraviolet light, 99% for nitrosoguanidine, and 99.3% for nitrous acid, respectively. In place of the method of liquid culture, an agar plug method, which is easy and convenient, was used to measure the antibiotic-producing abilities of the strains isolated from mutagen-treated cells. On the other hand, as the selection method of overproducing mutants after mutagenesis, gradient agar plates which included various antibiotics and salts were used. Among the antibiotics and salts tested, gentamicin and kanamycin as antibiotics, and CuCl$_2$ and HgCl$_2$ as salts, were effective to select the high-producers of sisomicin.