• Journal of Life Science
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.304-312
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• 2020

Agarase can be used in the field of basic science, as well as for production of agar-derived high-functional oligosaccharides and bioenergy production using algae. In 2012, we summarized the classification, origin, production, and applications of agar. In this paper, we briefly review the literature on the recombinant expression of agarases from 2012 to the present. Agarase genes originated from 19 genera, including Agarivorans, Flammeovirga, Pseudoalteromonas, Gayadomonas, Catenovulum, Microbulbifer, Cellulophaga, Saccharophagus, Simiduia, and Vibrio. Of the 47 recombinant agarases, there were only two α-agarases, while the rest were β-agarases. All α-agarases produced agarotetraose, while β-agarases yielded many neoagarooligosaccharides ranging from neoagarobiose to neoagarododecaose. The optimum temperature ranged between 25 and 60℃, and the optimum pH ranged from 3.0 to 8.5. There were 14 agarases with an optimum temperature of 50℃ or higher, where agar is in sol state after melting. Artificial mutations, including manipulation of carbohydrate-binding modules (CBM), increased thermostability and simultaneously raised the optimum temperature and activity. Many hosts and secretion signals or riboswitches have been used for recombinant expression. In addition to gene recombination based on the amino acid sequence after agarase purification, recombinant expression of the putative agarase genes after genome sequencing and metagenome-derived agarases have been studied. This study is expected to be actively used in the application fields of agarase and agarase itself.

• Journal of Marine Bioscience and Biotechnology
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2016

The hydrolysis of biomass to fermentable sugar (saccharification) and to oligosaccharide is an essential process in biotechnology including biorefinery and biofood. Various macroalgae are commercially cultivated in several Asian countries as a useful resource for food and agar production. Agar is a major component of the cell walls of red algae that can be hydrolyzed by agarase. Agarases are classified into ${\alpha}$-agarase (E.C. 3.2.1.158) and ${\beta}$-agarase (E.C. 3.2.1.81) according to the cleavage pattern and grouped in the glycoside hydrolase (GH) family (GH-16, GH-58, GH-86, GH-96, and GH-118) based on the amino acid sequences of the proteins. Agarases have been isolated from various bacteria found in seawater and marine sediments. To increase productivity of the enzyme, a research on recombinant enzymes has been done. The application of recombinant agarase can be possible in the various filed such as energy, food, cosmetics, medical and so on. This paper reviews the source, biochemical characteristics and production system of recombinant agarases for further study.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.17 no.11
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• pp.1601-1604
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• 2007

The gene for ${\beta}-agarase$ of an Agarivorans sp. JA-1 was expressed in Bacillus subtilis DB104, 168 and ISW1214 strains for mass-production. Among 3 host strains, B. subtilis ISW1214 secreted the highest amount of recombinant ${\beta}-agarase$ with a specific activity of 201 U/mg and 360 mg of protein into culture broth. This was approximately 130-fold higher than the production in E. coli as an expression host. Recombinant enzyme produced neoagarooligosaccharides such as neoagarohexaose, neoagarotetraose, and neoagarobiose from agar. Produced neoagarooligosaccharides showed antibacterial activities against gram-negative E. coli and gram-positive B. subtilis at a concentration of 1.5%. These data suggest that neoagarooligosaccharides could be an useful preservative for food industry.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.665-670
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• 1995

A marine bacterium which produces extracelluar agarase was isolated from sea water. Isolated strain was identified as Pseudomonas sp. by the morphological and biochemical properties (1). HindIII restriction fragment of 3.2 kb from Pseudomonas genomic DNA was cloned into pUC19 to obtain recombinant plasmid pJA1 which enables E. coli JM83 to produce agarase. Most of agarase produced in E. coli was secreted into the culture medium. The enzyme (pJA1) showed the highest agarase activity during the stationary phase (20 hrs) of E. coli. The optimum temperature and pH were 40$\circ$C and 7.8, respectively. Restriction gene map anlaysis revealed that it has different restriction pattern with three kind of agarase gene reported.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.40-45
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• 2010

The gene encoding $\beta$-agarase (agaB) which hydrolyzes $\beta$-1,4 linkages of agarose from Zobellia galactanivorans was cloned and fused to Saccharomyces cerevisiae mating factor alpha-1 secretion signal ($MF{\alpha}1$), in which the transcription of $MF{\alpha}1$-AgaB was under the control of AOX1 (alcohol oxidase 1, methanol inducible) promoter. The constructed plasmid pPIC-AgaB (9 kb) was integrated into HIS4 gene locus of Pichia pastoris genome. Successful integration was confirmed by performing colony PCR. The transformed cells showed red halos around its colonies in methanol agar plate by adding iodine solution, indicating the active expression of agaB in P.pastoris. By SDS-PAGE and zymographic analysis, the molecular weight of $\beta$-agarase was estimated to be a 53 kDa and about 15% N-linked glycosylation was occurred. The activity of extracellular $\beta$-agarase reached 1.34, 1.42 and 1.53 units/mL by inducing 0.1, 0.5, and 1% methanol, respectively, at baffled flask culture of P.pastoris GS115/pPIC-AgaB for 48 hr. Most of the enzyme activity was found in the extacellular fraction and the secretion efficiency showed 98%. Thermostability of recombinant $\beta$-agarase was also increased by glycosylation.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.32-37
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• 2020

We improved on a unified saccharification and fermentation (USF) system for the direct production of ethanol from agarose by increasing total agarase activity. The pGMFα-NGH plasmid harboring the NABH558 gene encoding neoagarobiose hydrolase and the AGAG1 and AGAH71 genes encoding β-agarase was constructed and used to transform Saccharomyces cerevisiae 2805. NABH558 gene transcription level was increased and total agarase activity was increased by 25 to 40% by placing the NABH558 gene expression cassette upstream of the other gene expression cassettes. In the 2805/pGMFα-NGH transformant, three secretory agarases were produced that efficiently degraded agarose to galactose, 3,6-anhydro-L-galactose (AHG), neoagarobiose, and neoagarohexaose. During the united cultivation process, a maximum of 2.36 g/l ethanol from 10 g/l agarose was produced over 120 h.

• Journal of Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.53 no.2
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• pp.105-107
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• 2010

To overcome the limitation of E. coli expression system such as inclusion body formation and disulfide bond failure, we tried to express the heterologous protein as a secreted form. We adopted agarase signal peptide (ASP; 23 amino acid residues) from Agarivorans albus YKW-34 which is one of marine bacteia. When we used ASP to express $\beta$-agarase, about 42% activity was detected in media.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.22 no.12
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• pp.1692-1697
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• 2012

We report a glycoside hydrolase (GH)-118 ${\beta}$-agarase from a strain of Agarivorans, in which we previously reported recombinant expression and characterization of the GH-50 ${\beta}$-agarase. The GH comprised an open reading frame of 1,437 base pairs, which encoded a protein of 52,580 daltons consisting of 478 amino acid residues. Assessment of the entire sequence showed that the enzyme had 97% nucleotide and 99% amino acid sequence similarities to those of GH-118 ${\beta}$-agarase from Pseudoalteromonas sp. CY24, which belongs to a different order within the same class. The gene corresponding to a mature protein of 440 amino acids was inserted, recombinantly expressed in Escherichia coli, and purified to homogeneity with affinity chromatography. It had maximal activity at $35^{\circ}C$ and pH 7.0 and had 208.1 units/mg in the presence of 300 mM NaCl and 1 mM $CaCl_2$. More than 80% activity was maintained after 2 h exposure to $35^{\circ}C$; however, < 40% activity remained at $45^{\circ}C$. The enzyme hydrolyzed agarose to yield neoagarooctaose as the main product. This enzyme could be useful for industrial production of functional neoagarooligosaccharides.

• 한국생물공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.04a
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• pp.31-32
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• 2005

Neoagaro-oligosaccharides are produced only by enzymatic degradation of agarose by ${\beta}-agarase.^{1)}$ Neoagaro-oligosaccharides inhibit the growth of bacteria, slow the rate of degradation of starch, are used as low-calorie additives to improve food quality, and have macrophage-stimulating activity. Furthermore, neoagarobiose is a rare reagent that has both moisturizing effect on skin and whitening effect on melanoma $cells.^{2)}$ An agar-degrading marine bacterium was isolated from the sea water at the northeast coast in Cheju island, Korea. The strain was gram negative, aerobic, and motile rod. The 16S rRNA of the strain had the closest match of 98% homology, with that from Agarivorans albus. On the basis of several phenotypic characters and a phylogenetic analysis, this strain was designated Agarivorans sp. JA-1. In solid agar plate, Agarivorans sp. JA-1 produced a diffusible agarase that caused agar softening around the colonies. Agarivorans sp. JA-1 was cultured for 36 hr in marine broth 2216 (Difco, USA) and the supernatant that containing an extracellular ${\beta}-agarase$ was prepared by centrifugation of culture media. The enzyme exhibited relatively strong activity at $40^{\circ}C$ and was stable up to $60^{\circ}C$. Using PCR primers derived from the ${\beta}-agarase$ gene of Vibrio sp., the gene encoding ${\beta}-agarase$ from Agarivorans sp. JA-1 was cloned and sequenced. The structural gene consists of 2931 bp encoding 976 amino acids with a predicted molecular weight of 107,360 Da. The deduced amino acid sequence showed 99% and 34% homology to $agaA^{2)}$ and $agaB^{2)}$ genes for ${\beta}-agarase$ from Vibrio sp., respectively. The expression plasmid for ${\beta}-agarase$ gene of Agarivorans sp. JA-1 is being constructed and the recombinant enzyme will be biochemically characterized.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.72-77
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• 2001

Expression of f3 ~agarase Gene and Catabolite Repression in Escherichia coli by the Promoter of Alginate Lyase Gene Isolated from Marine Pseudomonas sp. Jin, Cheal~Ho, J~Hyeon Park, Jeong-Hyun Han, YoonM Hyeok Chae, Jong~Hee Lee, Jung-Kee Lee!, and In-800 Kong*. Faculty of Food Science and Biotechnology, Pukyong National UniversitYt Pusan 608-737, Korea, llnBioNet Co. 1690-3 Taejon 306-230, Korea - Promoter is a key factor for expression of the recombinant protein. There are many promoters for overexpression of protein in various organisms. The aly promoter of Pseudomonas sp. W7 isolated from marine environment was known to be a constitutive expression promoter of the alginate lyase gene, and it's promoter activity is repressed by glucose in Escherichia coli. To investigate the catabolite repression of the aly promoter ~md association between the promoter mutants, f3 agarase gene, which was also cloned from Pseudomonas sp. W7 was connected to the aly promoter with the sequence the coding 46 N-terminal amino acids ofthe alginate lyase gene. The constructed plasmid was introduced into E. coli and the agarase activity was measured. Fourty six amino acids of the alginate lyase gene was serially deleted using peR to the direction of 5' upstream region and subcloned. The agarase was overexpressed by the aly promoter and the production of agarase was repressed by the addition of glucose into culture media. Fourty six amino acids of alginate lyase did not affect the production of agarase at all. The deletion of a putative stem-loop structure in the aly promoter induced the decrease of f3 -agarase productivity.