• Toxicological Research
• /
• v.17
• /
• pp.97-104
• /
• 2001

Three types of proteases (MEF-1, MEF-2 and MEF-3) were purified from the egg cases of Ten-odera sinensis using ammonium sulfate fractionation, gel filtration on Bio-Gel P-60 and affinity chromatography on DEAE Affi-Gel blue gel. The proteases were assessed homogeneous by SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and have molecular weight of 31,500, 32,900 and 35,600 Da, respectively. The N-terminal regions of the primary structure were compared and they were found to be different each other. MEFs readily digested the $A\alpha$ - and B$\beta$-chains of fibrinogen and more slowly the ${\gamma}$-chain. The action of the enzymes resulted in extensive hydrolysis of fibrinogen and fibrin, releasing a variety of fibrinopeptides. MEF-1 was inactivated by Cu$^{2+}$ and Zn$^{2+}$ and inhibited by PMSF and chymostatin. MEF-2 was inhibited by PMSF, TLCK. soybean trypsin inhibitor. MEF-3 was only inhibited by PMSF and chymostatin. Antiplasmin was not sensitive to MEF-1 but antithrombin III inhibited the enzymatic activity qf MEF-1. MEF-2 specifically bound to anti plasmin Among the chromogenic protease substrates, the most sensitive one to the hydrolysis of MEFs was benzoyl-Phe-Val-Arg-p-nitroanilide with maximal activity at pH 7.0 and 3$0^{\circ}C$. MEF-1 preferentially cleaved the oxidized B-chain of insulin between Leu15 and Tyr16. In contrast, MEF-2 specifically cleaved the peptide bond between Arg23 and Gly24. D-dimer concentrations increased on incubation of cross-linked fibrin with MEF-1, indicating the enzyme has a strong fibrinolytic activity.ity.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Applied Microbiology Conference
• /
• 2000.04a
• /
• pp.157-167
• /
• 2000

A thermostable chitosanase gene from the isolated strain, Bacillus sp. CK4, was cloned, and its complete DNA sequence was determined. The thermostable chitosanase gene was composed of an 822-bp open reading frame which encodes a protein of 242 amino acids and a signal peptide corresponding to a 30 kDa enzyme in size. The deduced amino acid sequence of the chitosanase from Bacillus sp. CK4 exhibits 76.6%, 15.3%, and 14.2% similarities to those from Bacillus subtilis, Bacillus ehemensis, and Bacillus circulans, respectively. C-terminal homology analysis shows that Bacillus sp. CK4 belongs to the Cluster III group with Bacillus subtilis. The size of the gene was similar to that of a mesophile, Bacillus subtilis showing a higher preference for codons ending in G or C. The functional importance of a conserved region in a novel chitosanase from Bacillus sp. CK4 was investigated. Each of the three carboxylic amino acid residues were changed to E50D/Q, E62D/Q, and D66N/E by site-directed mutagenesis. The D66N/E mutants enzymes had remarkably decreased kinetic parameters such as $V_{max}$ and k$\sub$cat/, indicating that the Asp-66 residue was essential for catalysis. The thermostable chitosanase contains three cysteine residues at position 49, 72, and 211. Titration of the Cys residues with DTNB showed that none of them were involved in disulfide bond. The C49S and C72S mutant enzymes were as stable to thermal inactivation and denaturating agents as the wild-type enzyme. However the half-life of the C211S mutant enzyme was less than 60 min at 80$^{\circ}C$, while that of the wild type enzyme was about 90 min. Moreover, the residual activity of C211S was substantially decreased by 8 M urea, and fully lost catalytic activity by 40% ethanol. These results show that the substitution of Cys with Ser at position 211 seems to affect the conformational stability of the chitosanase.

• BMB Reports
• /
• v.31 no.5
• /
• pp.459-467
• /
• 1998

A new set of functional group interaction energy descriptors relevant to the ACE (Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme) inhibitory peptide, QSAR (Quantitative Structure Activity Relationships), is presented. The functional group interaction energies approximate the charged interactions and distances between functional groups in molecules. The effective energies of the computationally derived geometries are useful parameters for deriving 3D-QSAR models, especially in the absence of experimentally known active site conformation. ACE is a regulatory zinc protease in the renin-angiotensin system. Therapeutic inhibition of this enzyme has proven to be a very effective treatment for the management of hypertension. The non bond interaction energy values among functional groups of six-feature of ACE inhibitory peptides were used as descriptor terms and analyzed for multivariate correlation with ACE inhibition activity. The functional group interaction energy descriptors used in the regression analysis were obtained by a series of inhibitor structures derived from molecular mechanics and semi-empirical calculations. The descriptors calculated using electrostatic and steric fields from the precisely defined functional group were sufficient to explain the biological activity of inhibitor. Application of the descriptors to the inhibition of ACE indicates that the derived QSAR has good predicting ability and provides insight into the mechanism of enzyme inhibition. The method, functional group interaction energy analysis, is expected to be applicable to predict enzyme inhibitory activity of the rationally designed inhibitors.

• BMB Reports
• /
• v.44 no.11
• /
• pp.758-763
• /
• 2011

Immunostimulatory CpG-DNA targeting TLR9 is one of the most extensively evaluated vaccine adjuvants. Previously, we found that a particular form of natural phosphodiester bond CpG-DNA (PO-ODN) encapsulated in a phosphatidyl-${\beta}$-oleoyl-${\gamma}$-palmitoyl ethanolamine (DOPE) : cholesterol hemisuccinate (CHEMS) (1 : 1 ratio) complex (Lipoplex(O)) is a potent adjuvant. Complexes containing peptide and Lipoplex(O) are extremely useful for B cell epitope screening and antibody production without carriers. Here, we showed that IL-12 production was increased in bone marrow derived dendritic cells in a CpG sequence-dependent manner when PO-ODN was encapsulated in Lipoplex(O), DOTAP or lipofectamine. However, the effects of Lipoplex(O) surpassed those of PO-ODN encapsulated in DOTAP or lipofectamine and also other various forms of liposome-encapsulated CpG-DNA in terms of potency for protein antigen-specific IgG production and Th1- associated IgG2a production. Therefore, Lipoplex(O) may have a unique potent immunoadjuvant activity which can be useful for various applications involving protein antigens as well as peptides.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
• /
• v.45 no.1
• /
• pp.69-73
• /
• 2009

Proteases are degradative enzymes which hydrolyze a peptide bond between amino acids and they are abundantly applied to commercial field. In order to investigate optimal medium compositions of carbon and nitrogen source for enzyme production, modified STY medium containing 0.15% yeast extract were used as basal medium. When galactose was used as carbon source, enzyme activity showed 1.3 higher than that of glucose. For nitrogen source addition of casamino acids to basal medium in place of tryptone showed lowest activity, whereas addition of malt extract showed maximal activity. The optimum temperature and pH of extracellular protease were found to be $35^{\circ}C$ an pH 8.5.

• Proceedings of the Korean Biophysical Society Conference
• /
• 2003.06a
• /
• pp.75-75
• /
• 2003

We report here the results on N-acetyl-N'-dimethylamide of proline (Ac-Pro-NM $e_2$) calculated using the ab initio molecular orbital method with the self-consistent reaction field (SCRF) theory at the HF level with the 6-31+G(d) basis set to investigate the conformational preference of polyproline depending on the cis/trans peptide bonds and down/up puckerings along the backbone torsion angle $\square$ in the gas phase, chloroform, and water. In the gas phase, Ac-Pro-NM $e_2$ has seven local minima of tFd, tFu, cFd, cFu, cAu, tAu, and cAd conformations. In particular, polyproline conformations tFd, tFu, cFd, and cFu are found to be more stable than $\square$-helical conformations cAu, tAu, and cAd. In contrast, Ac-Pro-NHMe has seven local minima of tCd, tCu, cBd, cAu, tAu, cFd, and cFu conformations. Conformations tCd and tCu are found to be most stable, which is ascribed to the intramolecular hydrogen bond between C=O of acetyl group and $N^{~}$ H of N'-methyl amide group. The stability of the cFd conformation (i.e., the polyproline I structure) in chloroform is somewhat increased, relative to that in water, although tFd and tFu conformations (i.e., the polyproline II structure) are dominate both in chloroform and water. The population of backbone conformations feasible in chloroform and water is consistent with the experiments. This work is supported by a Korea Research Foundation Grant (KRF-2002-041-C00129).

• Interdisciplinary Bio Central
• /
• v.1 no.2
• /
• pp.8.1-8.6
• /
• 2009

Introduction: It is a challenge to design a protein score function which stabilizes the native structures of many proteins simultaneously. The coarse-grained description of proteins to construct the pairwise-contact score function usually ignores the backbone directionality of protein structures. We propose a new two-body score function which stabilizes all native states of 1,006 proteins simultaneously. This two-body score function differs from the usual pairwise-contact functions in that it considers two adjacent amino acids at two ends of each peptide bond with the backbone directionality from the N-terminal to the C-terminal. The score is a corresponding propensity for a directional alignment of two adjacent amino acids with their local environments. Results and Discussion: We show that the construction of a directional adjacency-score function was achieved using 1,006 training proteins with the sequence homology less than 30%, which include all representatives of different protein classes. After parameterizing the local environments of amino acids into 9 categories depending on three secondary structures and three kinds of hydrophobicity of amino acids, the 32,400 adjacency-scores of amino acids could be determined by the perceptron learning and the protein threading. These could stabilize simultaneously all native folds of 1,006 training proteins. When these parameters are tested on the new distinct 382 proteins with the sequence homology less than 90%, 371 (97.1%) proteins could recognize their native folds. We also showed using these parameters that the retro sequence of the SH3 domain, the B domain of Staphylococcal protein A, and the B1 domain of Streptococcal protein G could not be stabilized to fold, which agrees with the experimental evidence.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
• /
• v.29 no.3
• /
• pp.295-303
• /
• 1985

Carboxypeptidase B from Salmo Salar eggs was purified by CM-cellulose, 0.5 ammonium sulfate saturation, DEAE-cellulose, and Sephadex G-75 gel filtration and its enzymatic properties were investigated. Optimum temperature was 55$^{\circ}C$, pH optima were 4.0 and 7.0 at 37$^{\circ}C$, and the enzyme was stable at pH 2.0∼3.0 and 5.5∼7.0 for 1.5h. This enzyme showed substrate specificity hydrolyzing the peptide bond of glycyl-L-arginine. Its K$_m$ values was 0.21mM, and the enzyme activity was stimulated by Cu$^{2+}$ and Fe$^{3+}$, while inhibited by Zn$^{2+}$. The lysine was found to be competitive inhibitor and its K$_i$ value was determined to be 4.3mM. Molecular weight of this enzyme was determined to be 36,400 daltons by SDS-PAGE and the enzyme was monomeric protein composed of 19 kinds of amino acid residues.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.28 no.12
• /
• pp.2079-2094
• /
• 2018

Sunflower trypsin inhibitor (SFTI) is a 14-amino-acid bicyclic peptide that contains a single internal disulfide bond. We initially constructed chimeras of SFTI with N-terminal secretion signals from the Escherichia coli OmpA and Pseudomonas aeruginosa ToxA, but only detected small amounts of protease inhibition resulting from these constructs. A substantially higher degree of protease inhibition was detected from a C-terminal SFTI fusion with E. coli YebF, which radiated more than a centimeter from an individual colony of E. coli using a culture-based inhibitor assay. Inhibitory activity was further improved in YebF-SFTI fusions by the addition of a trypsin cleavage signal immediately upstream of SFTI, and resulted in production of a 14-amino-acid, disulfide-bonded SFTI free in the culture supernatant. To assess the potential of the secreted SFTI to protect the ability of a cytotoxic protein to kill tumor cells, we utilized a tumor-selective form of the Pseudomonas ToxA (OTG-PE38K) alone and expressed as a polycistronic construct with YebF-SFTI in the tumor-targeted Salmonella VNP20009. When we assessed the ability of toxin-containing culture supernatants to kill MDA-MB-468 breast cancer cells, the untreated OTG-PE38K was able to eliminate all detectable tumor cells, while pretreatment with trypsin resulted in the complete loss of anticancer cytotoxicity. However, when OTG-PE38K was co-expressed with YebF-SFTI, cytotoxicity was completely retained in the presence of trypsin. These data demonstrate SFTI chimeras are secreted in a functional form and that co-expression of protease inhibitors with therapeutic proteins by tumor-targeted bacteria has the potential to enhance the activity of therapeutic proteins by suppressing their degradation within a proteolytic environment.

• 한국균학회소식:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2014.05a
• /
• pp.27-28
• /
• 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.