• BMB Reports
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• 제39권3호
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• pp.284-291
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• 2006

In this study, the cDNA of a new peptide from the venom of the scorpion, Buthotus saulcyi, was cloned and sequenced. It codes for a 64 residues peptide (Bsaul1) which shares high sequence similarity with depressant insect toxins of scorpions. The differences between them mainly appear in the loop1 which connects the $\beta$-strand1 to the $\alpha$-helix and seems to be functionally important in long chain scorpion neurotoxins. This loop is three amino acids longer in Bsaul1 compared to other depressant toxins. A comparative amino acid sequence analysis done on Bsaul1 and some of $\alpha$-, $\beta$-, excitatory and depressant toxins of scorpions showed that Bsaul1 contains all the residues which are highly conserved among long chain scorpion neurotoxins. Structural model of Bsaul1 was generated using Ts1 (a $\beta$-toxin that competes with the depressant insect toxins for binding to $Na^+$ channels) as template. According to the molecular model of Bsaul1, the folding of the polypeptide chain is being composed of an anti-parallel three-stranded $\beta$-sheet and a stretch of $\alpha$-helix, tightly bound by a set of four disulfide bridges. A striking similarity in the spatial arrangement of some critical residues was shown by superposition of the backbone conformation of Bsaul1 and Ts1.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• 제28권9호
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• pp.1482-1492
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• 2018

Fusarium oxysporum trypsin (FOT) is a fungal serine protease similar to mammal trypsin. The FOT could be successfully expressed in Pichiapastoris by engineering the natural propeptide APQEIPN. In this study, we constructed two recombinant enzymes with engineered amino acid sequences added to the N-terminus of FOT and expressed in P. pastoris. The N-terminal residues had various effects on the structural and functional properties of trypsin. The FOT, and the recombinants TE (with peptide YVEF) and TS (with peptide YV) displayed the same optimum temperature ($40^{\circ}C$) and pH (8.0). However, the combinants TE and TS showed significantly increased thermal stability at $40^{\circ}C$ and $50^{\circ}C$. Moreover, the combinants TE and TS also showed enhanced tolerance of alkaline pH conditions. Compared with those of wild-type FOT, the intramolecular hydrogen bonds and the cation ${\pi}$-interactions of the recombinants TE and TS were significantly increased. The recombinants TE and TS also had significantly increased catalytic efficiencies (referring to the specificity constant, $k_{cat}/K_m$), 1.75-fold and 1.23-fold than wild-type FOT. In silico modeling analysis uncovered that the introduction of the peptides YVEF and YV resulted in shorter distances between the substrate binding pocket (D174, G198, and G208) and catalytic triad (His42, Asp102, and Ser180), which would improve the electron transfer rate and catalytic efficiency. In addition, N-terminal residues modification described here may be a useful approach for improving the catalytic efficiencies and characteristics of other target enzymes.

• 한국자기공명학회논문지
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• 제5권1호
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• pp.37-45
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• 2001

Synthetic pulmonary surfactants consisting of a mixture of phospholipids with synthetic peptides based on human surfactant-associated protein SP-B were prepared. These surfactants were analyzed f3r their secondary structures by circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy and NMR spectroscopy. Two synthetic peptides (SP-B(3), SP-B(4)) combined with the phospholipid mixture displayed significant surfactant properties. The CD spectra showed that the u-helical propensities of the peptides in DPC micelles. In the NMR spectroscopy, the tertiary structures of SP-B(3) show that it has $\alpha$-helical structure from Gln5 to Arg13 in DPC micelle and SP-B(4) show that they have $\alpha$-helical structure from Gln5 to Leu12 in DPC micelle. Based on these structures, truncated peptides originated from SP-B protein, can be designed as effective synthetic surfactants for clinical use.

• 분석과학
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• 제13권4호
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• pp.494-503
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• 2000

암 억제제인 $p16^{INK4A}$ 단백질의 활성부위 84-104번까지의 21개 아미노산으로 이루어진 펩타이드를 합성하여, 이것의 용액상 구조를 CD, $^1H$ NMR 분광법 그리고, 분자 모델링 방법으로 분석하였다. CDK4 그리고 CDK6와 함께 안정된 complex를 형성하는 p16의 활성 펩타이드(84-104 아미노산)는 in vitro에서 pRb를 인산화하는 CDK4/6의 능력을 차단하고, p16단백질의 기능에서 보여주듯이 G1/S상의 세포 Cycle을 차단한다. NOE를 포함하는 $^3J_{NH{\alpha}}$ 스핀결합 상수, $C_{\alpha}H$ 화학적 이동, 아마이드 화학적 이동의 평균 변화 폭 그리고 온도 계수 등은 p16 펩타이드의 이차구조가 helix-turn-helix의 구조를 구성하는 p16단백질과 유사한 2차 구조를 가지고 있음을 보여주었다. NOE에 근거한 거리 및 이면각을 이용한 3.D 기하구조는 p18이나 p19의 대응하는 부위에 대한 결정구조에서 보여준 바와 같이 아미노산 $Gly^{89}-Leu^{91}$(${\varphi}_{i+1}=-79.8^{\circ}$, ${\varphi}_{i+1}=60.2^{\circ}$)사이에는 ${\gamma}$-회전구조를 형성함을 보여주었다. 이렇게 비교적 단단한 구조를 형성하고 있는 ${\gamma}$-회전구조부위는 p16펩타이드 구조를 안정시키며, CDK를 인식하는 부위로 작용할 수 있다. 이러한 ${\gamma}$-회전구조는 항암제 선도물질을 개발하는데 유용하게 활용될 수 있을 것이다.

• 한국미생물학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국미생물학회 2002년도 추계학술대회
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• pp.121-124
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• 2002

This work was initiated to develope a recombinant oral poliovaccine (OPV), which is highly advanced in safety (minimizing VAPP) by introducing Type 2,3 poliovirus epitopes into our RPS-Vax system. We have introduced several potential vaccine epitopes of poliovirus Type 2, and 3 into RPS-Vax system, resulting in production of recombinant polioviruses. Any of these chimeric viruses, however, were not detected for their foreign gene expression by serotype-specific mouse antiserum. We have designed several folding units to stabilize the introduced vaccine protein and attached short epitope-concatamer or epitope-multimer to them, followed by production of chimeric viruses. Only those who have an HIV-1 Tat-mediated folding unit were nicely detected for the introduced foreign proteins by anti-Tat antiserum and type-specific peptide-induced antisera. Nevertheless, introduced epitopes were not detected in Western blot experiment with each serotype-specific antiserum. None of the mice inoculated with these chimeric viruses showed preventative immunity when challenged with Lansing and Leon wildtype 2 and 3 poliovirus, and the antiserum did not show neutralizing capacity in vitro. Conformational epitope covering B/C loop region of type 2 and 3 were newly designed by computer modeling, and introduced into the RPS-Vax vector system, followed by production of chimeric viruses. Introduced epitope regions were nicely detected by anti-Tag23 mAb or peptide antibody, but still not detected by poliovirus antiserum. Nevertheless, neutralizing antibody was detected in the Tg-PVR mice even when inoculated once with these chimeric viruses. Also, the immunized mice showed perfect preventative immunity against the wild Type poliovirus Lancing or Leon. When boosted appropriately, those chimeric virus-inoculated Tg-PVR mice produced equivalent amounts of neutralizing antibody to those in Sabin 2/3-immunized mice. These data strongly suggest that our recombinant poliovirus (RPS-PV2 and RPS-PV3) can be used as a safe and effective rec-OPV instead of any preexisting poliovaccine.

• IMMUNE NETWORK
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• 제11권2호
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• pp.100-106
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• 2011

Background: Disparities of Minor H antigens can induce graft rejection after MHC-matched transplantation. H60 has been characterized as a dominant antigen expressed on hematopoietic cells and considered to be an ideal model antigen for study on graft-versus-leukemia effect. Methods: Splenocytes from C57BL/6 mice immunized with H60 congenic splenocytes were used for establishment of H60-specific CTL clones. Then the clones were characterized for proliferation capacity and cytotoxicity after stimulation with H60. Clone #14, #15, and #23 were tested for the TCR binding avidity to H60-peptide/$H-2K^b$ and analyzed for TCR sequences. Results: H60-specific CTL clones showed different levels of proliferation capacity and cytotoxic activity to H60-stimulation. Clones #14, #15, and #23 showed high proliferation activity, high cytotoxicity, and low activities on both aspects, respectively, and have TCRs with different binding avidities to H60-peptide/$H-2K^b$ with $t_{1/2}$ values of 4.87, 6.92, and 13.03 minutes, respectively. The TCR usages were $V{\alpha}12D-3-01+J{\alpha}11-01$ and $V{\beta}12-1-01+D{\beta}1-01+J2-7-01$ for clone #14, $V{\alpha}13D-1-02+J{\alpha}34-02$ and $V{\beta}13-1-02+D{\beta}2-01+J{\beta}2-7-01$ for clone #15, and $V{\alpha}16D+J{\alpha}45-01$ and $V{\beta}12-1-01+D{\beta}1-01+J{\beta}2-5-01$ for clone #23. Conclusion: The results will be useful for modeling GVL and generation TCR transgenic mouse.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• 제19권11호
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• pp.1306-1318
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• 2009

The filamentous ascomycete Sclerotinia sclerotiorum is well known for its ability to produce a large variety of hydrolytic enzymes. Two $\alpha$-amylases ScAmy54 and ScAmy43 predicted to play an important role in starch degradation were showed to produce specific oligosaccharides essentially maltotriose that have a considerable commercial interest. Primary structure of the two enzymes was established by N-terminal sequencing, MALDI-TOF masse spectrometry and cDNA cloning. The two proteins have the same N-terminal catalytic domain and ScAmy43 derived from ScAmy54 by truncation of 96 amino acids at the carboxyl-terminal region. Data of genomic analysis suggested that the two enzymes originated from the same $\alpha$-amylase gene and that truncation of ScAmy54 to ScAmy43 occurred probably during S. sclerotiorum cultivation. The structural gene of Scamy54 consisted of 9 exons and 8 introns, containing a single 1,500-bp open reading frame encoding 499 amino acids including a signal peptide of 21 residues. ScAmy54 exhibited high amino acid homology with other liquefying fungal $\alpha$-amylases essentially in the four conserved regions and in the putative catalytic triad. A 3D structure model of ScAmy54 and ScAmy43 was built using the 3-D structure of 2guy from A. niger as template. ScAmy54 is composed by three domains A, B, and C, including the well-known $(\beta/\alpha)_8$ barrel motif in domain A, have a typical structure of $\alpha$-amylase family, whereas ScAmy43 contained only tow domains A and B is the first fungal $\alpha$-amylase described until now with the smallest catalytic domain.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• 제28권4호
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• pp.409-417
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• 2012

We identified two novel expansin (EXP) genes in the expressed sequence tag database of Bursaphelenchus xylophilus, designated as Bx-EXPB2 and -EXPB3. Novel Bx-EXPBs encoded 150 amino acids and their similarities in coding sequence were 70.7-84.0% to the previously reported EXPB1 of B. xylophilus. Bx-EXPB2 and Bx-EXPB3 were clustered with Bx-EXPB1 and Bm-EXPB1, respectively, forming the independent phylogeny with other nematode EXPs. All identified Bx-EXPBs contained the signal peptide and were only expressed during the propagative stage, suggesting that they are secreted to facilitate nematode migration through hosts by loosening cell walls during infection. Quantitative real-time PCR analysis showed that the relative accumulation of Bx-EXPB3 mRNAs was the highest among the three Bx-EXPs examined and the order of mRNA accumulation was as follows: Bx-EXPB3 > Bx-EXPB2 >> Bx-EXPB1. Homology modeling of Bx-EXPBs showed that the structurally optimum template was EXLX1 protein of Bacillus subtilis, whichshared residues essential for catalytic activity with Bx-EXPB1 and Bx-EXPB2 except for Bx-EXPB3. Taken together, Bx-EXPB1 and Bx-EXPB2 may be involved migration through plant tissues and play a role in pathogenesis.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제16권14호
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• pp.6073-6080
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• 2015

Background: Melanoma differentiation-associated gene-7 (MDA-7)/interleukin-24 (IL-24), a unique tumor suppressor gene, has killing activity in a broad spectrum of cancer cells. Herein, plasmids producing mda-7 proteins fused to different RGD peptides (full RGD4C and shortened RGD, tRGD) were evaluated for apoptosis induction with a hepatocellular carcinoma cell line, Hep-G2. The study aim was to improve the apoptosis potency of mda-7 by tethering to RGD peptides. Materials and Methods: Three plasmids including mda-7, mda-7-RGD and mda-7-tRGD genes beside a control vector were transfected into Hep-G2 cells. After 72 hours incubation, cell viability was evaluated by MTT assay. In addition, the rate of apoptosis was analyzed by flow cytometry using PI/annexin staining. To detect early events in apoptosis, 18 hours after transfection, expression of the BAX gene was quantified by real time PCR. Modeling of proteins was also performed to extrapolate possible consequences of RGD modification on their structures and subsequent attachment to receptors. Results and Conclusions: In MTT assays, while all mda-7 forms showed measurable inhibition of proliferation, unmodified mda-7 protein exhibited most significant effect compared to control plasmid (P<0.001). Again, flow cytometry analysis showed a significant apoptosis induction by simple mda-7 gene but not for those RGD-fused mda-7 proteins. These findings were also supported by expression analysis of BAX gene (P<0.001). Protein modelling analysis revealed that tethering RGD at the end of IL-24/Mda7 disrupt attachment to cognate receptor, IL-20R1/IL-20R2. In conclusion, fusion of RGD4C and shortened RGD peptides to carboxyl terminal of mda7, not only reduce apoptosis property in vitro but also disrupt receptor attachment as demonstrated by protein modelling.

• Toxicological Research
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• 제17권
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• pp.109-115
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• 2001

Abrus agglutinin was purified from the kernels of Abrus precatorius by Sepharose 4B affinity column chromatography followed by Sephadex G-100 gel filtration column chromatography. About 1.25 g of abrus agglutinin was obtained from 1 kg of the kernels. The LD$_{50}$ of abrus agglutinin is 5 mg/kg of body weight, which is less toxic than that of abrin, 20$\mu\textrm{g}$/kg body weight. The amino acid sequence of abrus agglutinin was determined by protein sequencing techniques and deduced from the nucleotide sequence of a cDNA clone encoding full length of abrus agglutinin. There are 258 residues, 2 residues and 267 residues in the A-chain, the linker peptide and the B-chain of abrus agglutinin, respectively. Abrus agglutinin had high homology to abrin-a (77.8%). The 13 amino acid residues involved in catalytic function, which are highly conserved among abrin and ricin, were also conserved within abrus agglutinin. The protein synthesis inhibitory activity of abrus agglutinin ($IC_{50}$/ = 3.5 nM) was weaker than that of abrin-a (0.05 nM). By molecular modeling followed by site-directed mutagenesis showed that Pro199 of abrus agglutinin A-chain located in amphipathic helix H and corresponding to Asn200 of abrin A-chain, can induce bending of helix H. This bending would presumably affect the binding of abrus agglutinin A-chain to its target sequence GpApGpAp, in the tetraloop structure of 285 r-RNA subunit and this could be one of major factors contributing to the relatively weak protein synthesis inhibitory activity and toxicity of abrus agglutinin.n.