• International Journal of Industrial Entomology and Biomaterials
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.115-121
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• 2012

The bumblebee Bombus terrestris is widely used in greenhouses to pollinate crops. Here, we report the molecular cloning and characterization of chymotrypsin inhibitor and chitin-binding protein homologs from B. terrestris. Two cDNAs encoding chymotrypsin inhibitor (Bt-CI) and chitin-binding protein (Bt-CBP) homologs were cloned from B. terrestris. Gene sequence analysis showed that Bt-CI gene consists of three exons encoding 75 amino acids, including a predicted 20-amino acid signal peptide, while Bt-CBP consists of two exons encoding 78 amino acids, including a predicted 26-amino acid signal peptide. The mature Bt-CI and Bt-CBP peptides contain ten and six conserved cysteine residues, respectively. Database searches using the deduced sequences of Bt-CI and Bt-CBP showed similarity to those from B. impatiens (96% peptide sequence identities). Bt-CI and Bt-CBP were expressed in both the venom gland and fat body of B. terrestris worker bees. The recombinant Bt-CI and Bt-CBP peptides were expressed in baculovirus-infected insect cells. Taken together, our findings describe the molecular characterization of Bt-CI and Bt-CBP from B. terrestris.

• International Journal of Industrial Entomology and Biomaterials
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.79-84
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• 2015

A new cecropin-like antimicrobial peptide (Px-CLP) gene was isolated from the immunechallenged larvae of the swallowtail butterfly, Papilio xuthus, by employing annealing control primer (ACP)-based GeneFishing PCR. The full-length cDNA of Px-CLP is 310 nucleotides encoding a 70 amino acid precursor that contains a putative 22-residue signal peptide, a 4-residue propeptide, a presumed 37-residue mature peptide, and an uncommon 7-residue acidic pro-region at the C-terminus. The deduced amino acid sequence of Px-CLP showed significant identities with other Lepidopteran cecropin D type peptides. RT-PCR revealed that the Px-CLP transcript was detected at significant level after injection with bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS). The peptides with or without C-terminal acidic sequence region were synthesized on-solid phage and submitted to antibacterial activity assay. The synthetic 37-mer peptide (Px-CLPa), which removed C-terminal acidic sequence region, was showed exclusively antibacterial activity against E. coli ML35; meanwhile, a 44-mer peptide (Px-CLPb) with C-terminal acidic peptide region was not active. This result suggests that Px-CLP is produced as a larger precursor containing a C-terminal pro-region that is subsequently removed by C-terminal modification.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Applied Pharmacology
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• 1995.04a
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• pp.81-81
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• 1995

It is well known that Src Homology 2(SH2) domain in many intracellular signal transduction proteins is very important. The domain has about 100 amino acid residues and bind phosphotyrosine-containing peptide with high affinity and specificity. Lck SH2 domain is a Src-like, lymphocyte-specific tyrosine kinase. An 11-residue phosphopeptide derived from the hamster polvoma middle-T antigen, EPQp YEEIPIYL, binds with an 1 nM dissociation constant to Lck SH2 domain. And it is known that the phosphotyrosine and isoleucine residues of the peptide are tightly bound by two well-defined pockets on Lck SH2 domain's surface. To investigate the conformational changes during complexation of SH2 domain with phosphopeptide we have performed the molecular dynamics simulation for Lck SH2 domain with peptide and peptide-free form at look in aqueous solution. More than 3000 water molecules were incorporated to solvate Lck SH2 domain and peptide. Periodic boundary condition has been applied in molecular dynamics simulation. Data analysis with the results of that simulation shows that the phosphopeptide makes primary interaction with the Lck SH2 domain at six central residues, The comparison of the complexed and uncomplexed SH2 domain structures in solution has revealed only relatively small change. But the hydrophilic and hydrophobic pockets in the protein surface show the conformational changes in spite of the small structural difference between the complex and peptide-free forms.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.460-462
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• 2008

Pollens grains collected from fully dehisced lily (Lilium longiflorum) anthers were given wounds by means of shaking in the presence of aluminum oxide particles. They were transformed by infiltration with Agrobacterium cells harboring a synthetic DNA encoding signal peptide-fused epidermal growth factor (EGF). After incubation for 24 hr in vitro, the pollen culture showed that EGF mRNAs and proteins were successfully expressed in the analysis of cDNA blot hybridization and immuno-blotting.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.287-293
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• 2010

Reliable discrimination of a single nucleotide mismatch was demonstrated using arrays with peptide nucleic acid (PNA) probes. The newly developed PNA probes immobilization method and hybridization conditions for PNA arrays gave excellent specificity and sensitivity. In addition we compared the specificity, sensitivity, and stability obtained with the PNA and DNA arrays in discriminating single nucleotide mismatches. The PNA arrays had superior perfect match-to-mismatch signal ratios and sensitivities. The relative signal intensities of mismatch PNA probes ranged from 1.6% to 12.1% of the perfect-match PNA probes. These results demonstrated that the PNA arrays were 2.0 to 37.3 times more specific and about 10 times more sensitive than DNA arrays. The PNA array showed the same specificity and sensitivity after 12-month storage at room temperature.

• Journal of Marine Bioscience and Biotechnology
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.55-62
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• 2024

Various antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) from microalgae have shown antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal, anticancer, and antioxidant effects, and play crucial roles in medical applications, aquaculture-related disease management, and the food industry. Magainin 2 (MAG2), an AMP, exhibits high antibacterial and antitumor activity, necessitating an efficient recombinant expression system for low-cost, large-scale production. To enhance MAG2 secretion efficiency in Chlorella, we constructed the SS:MAG2:His vector using the known Chlamydomonas reinhardtii CA1 signal sequence (SS) and obtained a stable transformant via an Agrobacterium-mediated transformation method and RT-qPCR. ELISA results revealed that the MAG2 content secreted into the medium by the SS:MAG2:His transformants increased proportionally with mRNA expression. These findings offer a strategy for high MAG2 secretion in the Chlorella vulgaris platform, potentially minimizing downstream processing costs.

• Journal of Sericultural and Entomological Science
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• v.52 no.1
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• pp.45-51
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• 2014

A cecropin-A gene was isolated from the immunized larvae of the Japanese oak silkworm, Antheraea yamamai and designed Ay-CecA. The complete Ay-CecA cDNA consists of 419 nucleotides with 195 bp open reading frame encoding a 64 amino acid precursor that contains a putative 22-residue signal peptide, a 4-residue propetide and a 37-residue mature peptide with a theoretical mass of 4046.81. The deduced amino acid sequence of the peptide evidenced a significant degree of identity (62 ~ 78% identity) with other lepidopteran cecropins. Like many insect cecropin, Ay-CecA also harbored a glycine residue for C-terminal amidation at the C-end, which suggests potential amidation. To understand this peptide better, we successfully expressed bioactive recombinant Ay-CecA in Escherichia coli that are highly sensitive to the mature peptide. For this, we fused mature Ay-CecA gene with insoluble protein ketosteroid isomerase (KSI) gene to avoid the cell death during induction. The fusion KSI-CecA protein was expressed as inclusion body. The expressed fusion protein was purified by Ni-NTA immobilized metal affinity chromatography (IMAC), and cleaved by cyanogen bromide (CNBr) to release recombinant Ay-CecA. The purified recombinant Ay-CecA showed considerably antibacterial activity against Gram-negative bacteria, E. cori ML 35, Klebsiella pneumonia and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Our results proved that this peptide with a potent antibacterial activity may play a role in the immune response of Japanese oak silkworm.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.84-91
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• 2012

Two staphylococcal lipases were obtained from Staphylococcus epidermidis S2 and Staphylococcus aureus S11 isolated from sebaceous areas on the skin of the human face. The molecular mass of both enzymes was estimated to be 45 kDa by SDS-PAGE. S2 lipase displayed its highest activity in the hydrolysis of olive oil at $32^{\circ}C$ and pH 8, whereas S11 lipase showed optimal activity at $31^{\circ}C$ and pH 8.5. The S2 lipase showed the property of cold-adaptation, with activation energy of 6.52 kcal/mol. In contrast, S11 lipase's activation energy, at 21 kcal/mol, was more characteristic of mesophilic lipases. S2 lipase was stable up to $45^{\circ}C$ and within the pH range from 5 to 9, whereas S11 lipase was stable up to $50^{\circ}C$ and from pH 6 to 10. Both enzymes had high activity against tributyrin, waste soybean oil, and fish oil. Sequence analysis of the S2 lipase gene showed an open reading frame of 2,067 bp encoding a signal peptide (35 aa), a pro-peptide (267 aa), and a mature enzyme (386 aa); the S11 lipase gene, at 2,076 bp, also encoded a signal peptide (37 aa), pro-peptide (255 aa), and mature enzyme (399 aa). The two enzymes maintained amino acid sequence identity of 98-99% with other similar staphylococcal lipases. Their microbial origins and biochemical properties may make these staphylococcal lipases isolated from facial sebaceous skin suitable for use as catalysts in the cosmetic, medicinal, food, or detergent industries.

• Journal of KIISE:Software and Applications
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• v.36 no.10
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• pp.786-792
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• 2009

A kernel in support vector machines can be described as a similarity measure between data, and this measure is used to find an optimal hyperplane that classifies patterns. It is therefore important to effectively incorporate the characteristics of data into the similarity measure. To find an optimal similarity between amino acid sequences, we propose a real exponent exponential form of the two metrices, which are derived from the evolutionary relationships of amino acids and the hydrophobicity of amino acids. We prove that the proposed metric satisfies the conditions to be a metric, and we find a relation between the proposed metric and the metrics in the string kernels which are widely used for the processing of amino acid sequences and DNA sequences. In the prediction experiments on the cleavage site of the signal peptide, the optimal metric can be found in the proposed metrics.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.25 no.7
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• pp.1070-1083
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• 2015

A gene (GT-SM3B) encoding a thermostable secreted oligoendopeptidase (GT-SM3B) was cloned from the thermophile Geobacillus thermoleovorans DSM 15325. GT-SM3B is 1,857 bp in length and encodes a single-domain protein of 618 amino acids with a 23-residue signal peptide having a calculated mass of 67.7 kDa after signal cleavage. The deduced amino acid sequence of GT-SM3B contains a conservative zinc metallopeptidase motif (His⁴⁰⁰-Glu⁴⁰¹-X-XHis⁴⁰⁴). The described oligopeptidase belongs to the M3B subfamily of metallopeptidases and displays the highest amino acid sequence identity (40.3%) to the oligopeptidase PepF_Ba from mesophilic Bacillus amyloliquefaciens 23-7A among the characterized oligopeptidases. Secretory production of GT-SM3B was used, exploiting successful oligopeptidase signal peptide recognition by Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3). The recombinant enzyme was purified from the culture fluid. Homodimerization of GT-SM3B was determined by SDS-PAGE. Both the homodimer and monomer were catalytically active within a pH range of 5.0–8.0, at pH 7.3 and 40℃, showing the K_m, V_max, and k_cat values for carbobenzoxy-Gly-Pro-Gly-Gly-Pro-Ala-OH peptidolysis to be 2.17 ± 0.04 × 10^-6 M, 2.65 ± 0.03 × 10^-3 µM/min, and 5.99 ± 0.07 s^-1, respectively. Peptidase remained stable at a broad pH range of 5.0–8.0. GT-SM3B was thermoactive, demonstrating 84% and 64% of maximum activity at 50℃ and 60℃, respectively. The recombinant oligopeptidase is one of the most thermostable M3B peptidase, retaining 71% residual activity after incubation at 60℃ for 1 h. GT-SM3B was shown to hydrolyze a collagenous peptide mixture derived from various types of collagen, but less preferentially than synthetic hexapeptide. This study is the first report on an extracellular thermostable metallo-oligopeptidase.