• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.17-25
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• 2013

The thermotolerant methylotrophic yeast Hansenula polymorpha is an attractive model organism for various fundamental studies, such as the genetic control of enzymes involved in methanol metabolism, peroxisome biogenesis, nitrate assimilation, and resistance to heavy metals and oxidative stresses. In addition, H. polymorpha has been highlighted as a promising recombinant protein expression host, especially due to the availability of strong and tightly regulatable promoters. In this study, we investigated the possibility of employing human serum albumin (HSA) as the fusion tag for the secretory expression of heterologous proteins in H. polymorpha. A set of four expression cassettes, which contained the methanol oxidase (MOX) promoter, translational HSA fusion tag, and the terminator of MOX, were constructed. The expression cassettes were also designed to contain sequences for accessory elements including His8-tag, $2{\times}(Gly_4Ser_1)$ linkers, tobacco etch virus protease recognition sites (Tev), multi-cloning sites, and strep-tags. To determine the effects of the size of the HSA fusion tag on the secretory expression of the target protein, each cassette contained the HSA gene fragment truncated at a specific position based on its domain structure. By using the Green fluorescence protein gene as the reporter, the properties of each expression cassette were compared in various conditions. Our results suggest that the translational HSA fusion tag is an efficient tool for the secretory expression of recombinant proteins in H. polymorpha.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.200-208
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• 2011

Most problematic antibiotic resistance mechanism for MLS (macrolide-lincosamide-streptogramn B) antibiotics encountered in clinical practice is mono- or dimethylation of specific adenine residue at 2058 (E. coli coordinate) of 23S rRNA which is performed by Erm (erythromycin ribosome resistance) protein through which bacterial ribosomes reduce the affinity to the antibiotics and become resistant to them. ErmSF is one of the four gene products produced by Streptomyces fradiae to be resistant to its own antibiotic, tylosin. Unlike other Erm proteins, ErmSF harbors idiosyncratic long N-terminal end region (NTER) 25% of which is comprised of arginine well known to interact with RNA. Furthermore, NTER was found to be important because when it was truncated, most of the enzyme activity was lost. Based on these facts, capability of NTER peptide to inhibit the enzymatic activity of ErmSF was sought. For this, expression system for two different proteins to be expressed in one cell was developed. In this system, two plasmids, pET23b and pACYC184 have unique replication origins to be compatible with each other in a cell. And expression system harboring promoter, ribosome binding site and transcription termination signal is identical but disparate amount of protein could be expressed according to the copy number of each vector, 15 for pACYC and 40 for pET23b. Expression of NTER peptide in pET23b together with ErmSF in pACYC 184 in E. coli successfully gave more amounts of NTER than ErmSF but no inhibitory effects were observed suggesting that there should be dynamicity in interaction between ErmSF and rRNA rather than simple and fixed binding to each other in methylation of 23S rRNA by ErmSF.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.73-78
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• 2012

We previously reported that the truncated Cel44C-$Man26A_{P558}$ ${\beta}$-glycosyl hydrolase protein exhibits multifunctional activities, including cellulase, xylanase, and lichenase. DNA shuffling of the truncated Cel44C-$Man26A_{P558}$ enzyme was performed to enhance the enzymatic activity of the multifunctional ${\beta}$-glycosyl hydrolase. Two mutant enzymes, M2Cel44C-$Man26A_{P558}$ that carries one mutation (P438A) and M21Cel44C-$Man26A_{P558}$ that carries two mutations (A273T and P438A) were obtained. The enzymatic activity of the M21Cel44C-$Man26A_{P558}$ double mutant was lower than enzymatic activity of the single mutant (M2Cel44C-$Man26A_{P558}$). However, both mutants displayed the enhancements in their enzyme activities that were ${\approx}1.3$- to 2.2-fold higher than the original enzymatic activity in Cel44C-$Man26A_{P558}$. In particular, the mutant M2Cel44C-$Man26A_{P558}$ exhibited an approximate 1.5- to 2.2-fold increase in the cellulase, xylanase, and lichenase activities in comparison with the control (Cel44C-$Man26A_{P558}$). The optimum cellulase, linchenase, and xylanase activities of ${\beta}$-glycosyl hydrolase were observed at pH 7.0, pH 7.0 and pH 6.0, respectively. These results, therefore, suggest that the amino acid residue Ala438 plays important roles in the enhancement of the activity of multifunctional ${\beta}$-glycosyl hydrolase.

• Journal of the korean academy of Pediatric Dentistry
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.401-410
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• 2006

Dental caries results from localized demineralization of tooth enamel by acids of bacterial origin produced from the fermentation of dietary sugars. A group of related oral bacteria, collectively known as mutans streptococci, are implicated as the primary etiological agents of human caries. Within this group, Streptococcus mutans has been known as a causative agent for dental caries. As well as acid production yielding the demineralization of tooth enamel, adherence and colonization of S. mutans to the teeth are also important for their virulence Cell-surface fibrillar proteins, which mediate adherence to the salivary pellicle are virulence components of mutans streptococci, and primary candidates for a human caries vaccine. Here we report that the AgI/II gene from S. mutans GS-5 were cloned by PCR amplification of the bacterial chromosomal DNA and the integrity of cloned genes were confirmed by nucleotide sequencing. Sequence analyses showed the sequence alignment of 280 nucleotides between the cloned AgI/II and the reported sequence of S. mutans GS-5 showed the perfect match The cloned genes which signal nucleotide was truncated, were transferred into bacterial expression vector and the recombinant proteins were purified as His-tag fusion proteins In order to generate polyclonal antibodies against the recombinant proteins, AgI/II mr, some $100{\mu}g$ of the proteins was injected into mice three times. It can be used for an effective vaccine production to prevent dental caries caused by pathogenic S. mutans.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.246-251
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• 2006

A lot of mutants which cannot initiate sexual development were screened and several loci including nsdA, nsdB, nsdC, and nsdD were identified in homothallic ascomycetes Aspergillus nidulans. The NSD206, which has nsdC6 allele, showed typical phenotype of NSD (Never in sexual development) mutants. The nsdC gene was cloned by transforming NSDP697 ($nsdC^-$, $pryG^-$) with AMA1-NotI genomic library. The transforming library DNA recovered from several transformants showing wild phenotype carried about 10 kb genomic DNA insert. The DNA sequence of nsdC was analysed using GPS (Genome priming system). The nsdC gene has an open reading frame (ORF) of 1,929 bp encoding a putative polypeptide of 643 amino acids. The NsdC carries $C_2H_2C_2H_2C_2HC$ type zinc finger DNA binding domains in the middle of the polypeptide. A coiled-coil domain at its C terminus were also found. In nsdC6 allele, a single T insertion was occurred between 407-408 bp leading to the frameshift mutation and early termination of translation producing the truncated protein which has only 139 amino acids.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.52 no.3
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• pp.269-277
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• 2016

Erm proteins methylate the specific adenine residue ($A_{2058}$, E. coli numbering) on 23S rRNA to confer the $MLS_B$ (macrolidelincosamide-streptogramin B) antibiotic resistance on a variety of microorganisms ranging from antibiotic producers to pathogens. When phylogenetic tree is constructed, two main clusters come out forming each cluster of Actinobacteria and Firmicutes. Two representative Erm proteins from each cluster were selected and their in vitro methylation activities were compared. ErmS and ErmE from Actinobacteria cluster exhibited much higher activities than ErmB and ErmC' from Firmicutes: 9 fold difference when ErmC' and ErmE were compared and 13 fold between ErmS and ErmB. Most of the difference was observed and presumed to be caused by N-terminal and C-terminal extra region from ErmS and ErmE, respectively because NT59TE in which N-terminal end 59 amino acids was truncated from wild type ErmS exhibited only 22.5% of wild type ErmS activity. Meanwhile, even NT59TE showed three and 2.2 times more activity when it was compared to ErmB and C, respectively, suggesting core region from antibiotic producers contains extra structure enabling higher activity. This is suggested to be possible through the extra region of 197RWS199 (from both ErmS and ErmE), 261GVGGSLY267 (from ErmS), and 261GVGGNIQ267 (from ErmE) and 291SVV293 (from ErmS) and 291GAV293 (from ErmE) by multiple sequence alignment.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.23 no.7
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• pp.926-932
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• 2013

Glutamine and serum are essential for cell survival and proliferation in vitro, yet the signaling pathways that sense glutamine and serum levels in endothelial cells remain uninvestigated. In this study, we examined the effects of glutamine deprivation and serum starvation on the fate of endothelial cells using a human umbilical vein endothelial cell (HUVEC) model. Our data indicated that glutamine deprivation and serum starvation trigger a progressive reduction in cell viability through apoptosis induction in HUVECs as determined by DAPI staining and flow cytometry analysis. Although the apoptotic effects were more predominant in the glutamine deprivation condition, both apoptotic actions were associated with an increase in the Bax/Bcl-2 (or Bcl-xL) ratio, down-regulation of the inhibitor of apoptosis protein (IAP) family proteins, activation of caspase activities, and concomitant degradation of poly (ADP-ribose) polymerases. Moreover, down-regulation of the expression of Bid or up-regulation of truncated Bid (tBid) were observed in cells grown under the same conditions, indicating that glutamine deprivation and serum starvation induce the apoptosis of HUVECs through a signaling cascade involving death-receptor-mediated extrinsic pathways, as well as mitochondria-mediated intrinsic caspase pathways. However, apoptosis was not induced in cells grown in glutamine- and serum-free media when compared with cells exposed to glutamine deprivation or serum starvation alone. Taken together, our data indicate that glutamine deprivation and serum starvation suppress cell viability without apoptosis induction in HUVECs.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.421-431
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• 2016

Recently, poly-γ-glutamic acid synthetase A (pgsA) has been applied to display exogenous proteins on the surface of Lactobacillus casei or Lactococcus lactis, which results in a surface-displayed component of bacteria. However, the ability of carrying genes encoded by plasmids and the expression efficiency of recombinant bacteria can be somewhat affected by the longer gene length of pgsA (1,143 bp); therefore, a truncated gene, pgsA, was generated based on the characteristics of pgsA by computational analysis. Using murine IL-10 as an exogenous gene, recombinant Lactobacillus plantarum was constructed and the capacity of the surface-displayed protein and functional differences between exogenous proteins expressed by these strains were evaluated. Surface expression of IL-10 on both recombinant bacteria with anchorins and the higher expression levels in L. plantarum-pgsA'-IL-10 were confirmed by western blot assay. Most importantly, up-regulation of IL-1β, IL-6, TNF-α, IFN-γ, and the nuclear transcription factor NF-κB p65 in RAW264.7 cells after stimulation with Poly(I:C) or LPS was exacerbated after co-culture with L. plantarum-pgsA. By contrast, IL-10 expressed by these recombinant strains could reduce these factors, and the expression of these factors was associated with recombinant strains that expressed anchorin (especially in L. plantarum-pgsA'-IL-10) and was significantly lower compared with the anchorin-free strains. These findings indicated that exogenous proteins could be successfully displayed on the surface of L. plantarum by pgsA or pgsA', and the expression of recombinant bacteria with pgsA' was superior compared with bacteria with pgsA.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.158-166
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• 2020

A gene coding for the xylanase was cloned from Paenibacillus woosongensis, followed by determination of its complete nucleotide sequence. This xylanase gene, designated as xyn10A, consists of 1,446 nucleotides encoding a polypeptide of 481 amino acid residues. Based on the deduced amino acid sequence, Xyn10A was identified to be a modular enzyme composed of a catalytic domain highly homologous to the glycosyl hydrolase family 10 xylanase and a putative carbohydrate-binding module (CBM) in the C-terminus. By using DEAE-sepharose and phenyl-sepharose column chromatography, Xyn10A was purified from the cellfree extract of recombinant Escherichia coli carrying a P. woosongensis xyn10A gene. The N-terminal amino acid sequence of the purified Xyn10A was identified to exactly match the sequence immediately following the signal peptide predicted by the Signal5.0 server. The purified Xyn10A was a truncated protein of 33 kDa, suggesting the deletion of CBM in the C-terminus by intracellular hydrolysis. The purified enzyme had an optimum pH and temperature of 6.0 and 55-60℃, respectively, with the kinetic parameters V_max and K_m of 298.8 U/mg and 2.47 mg/ml, respectively, for oat spelt xylan. The enzyme was more active on arabinoxylan than on oat spelt xylan and birchood xylan with low activity for p-nitrophenyl-β-xylopyranoside. Xylanase activity was significantly inhibited by 5 mM Cu²⁺, Mn²⁺, and SDS, and was noticeably enhanced by K⁺, Ni²⁺, and Ca²⁺. The enzyme could hydrolyze xylooligosaccharides larger than xylobiose. The predominant products resulting from xylooligosaccharide hydrolysis were xylobiose and xylose.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.17 no.3 s.83
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• pp.356-361
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• 2007

To investigate the region of ErbB2 for the $ErbB2-{\beta}-catenin$ interaction, a proteasome $resistant-{\beta}-catenin$ and various ErbB2 constructs were transfected in COS7 cells. ErbB2 proteins were immunoprecipitated, and coimmunoprecipitated ${\beta}-catenin$ was examined by Western blotting. ${\beta}-catenin$ coimmunoprecipitated with full length ErbB2. Of the truncated ErbB2 proteins DT (1-1123), DHC (1-1031) and DK (1-750), the ErbB2 constructs containing the kinase domain, DT and DHC, precipitated together with ${\beta}-catenin$ but DK containing no kinase domain did not. To further test the requirement of the kinase domain for ${\beta}-catenin-ErbB2$ interaction, the presence of ${\beta}-catenin$ in the immunocomplex was examined following transfection with an ErbB2 mutant (${\triangle}750-971$) whose kinase domain is internally deleted and subsequent immunoprecipitation of the ErbB2 mutant. ${\beta}-catenin$ was not detected in the immunocomplex. These results suggest that the ErbB2 kinase domain comprises a potential site for ${\beta}-catenin$ binding to the receptor tyrosine kinase.