• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.254-264
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• 2010

To obtain an efficient natural lignocellulolytic complex enzyme, we screened an efficient lignocellulose-degrading composite microbial system (XDC-2) from composted agricultural and animal wastes amended soil following a long-term directed acclimation. Not only could the XDC-2 degrade natural lignocelluloses, but it could also secrete extracellular xylanase efficiently in liquid culture under static conditions at room temperature. The XDC-2 degraded rice straw by 60.3% after fermentation for 15 days. Hemicelluloses were decomposed effectively, whereas the extracellular xylanase activity was dominant with an activity of 8.357 U/ml on day 6 of the fermentation period. The extracellular crude enzyme noticeably hydrolyzed natural lignocelluloses. The optimum temperature and pH for the xylanase activity were $40^{\circ}C$ and 6.0. However, the xylanase was activated in a wide pH range of 3.0-10.0, and retained more than 80% of its activity at $25-35^{\circ}C$ and pH 5.0-8.0 after three days of incubation in liquid culture under static conditions. PCR-DGGE analysis of successive subcultures indicated that the XDC-2 was structurally stable over long-term restricted and directed cultivation. Analysis of the 168 rRNA gene clone library showed that the XDC-2 was mainly composed of mesophilic bacteria related to the genera Clostridium, Bacteroides, Alcaligenes, Pseudomonas, etc. Our results offer a new approach to exploring efficient lignocellulolytic enzymes by constructing a high-performance composite microbial system with synergistic complex enzymes.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.263-271
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• 2013

A xylanase-producing bacterium was isolated from a soil sample collected in Yongin city, Korea. The strain was aerobic and gram positive, and grew between pH 5.0 and 11.0, forming a yellow-colored colony. The strain was classified as a novel subspecies bacterium of Paenibacillus barcinonensis by 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity, phylogenetic analysis, phenotypic, and biochemical characteristics, and thus named Paenibacillus sp. HX-1. This strain produced extracellular endo-${\beta}$-1,4-xylanase, and the best xylanolytic activity (205.17 unit/ml) was obtained at 96 h in an optimized TNX medium containing 1% (w/v) bacto tryptone, 1% (w/v) NaCl, and 0.7% (w/v) beechwood xylan at pH 7.0, $37^{\circ}C$ and 200 rpm. The endo-${\beta}$-1,4-xylanase produced by the strain HX-1 yielded xylobiose as the end product from beechwood xylan hydrolysis. The enzyme exhibited optimum pH and temperature at pH 7.0 and $45^{\circ}C$, respectively. The remarkable enhancing effect of the TNX medium on xylanase production by HX-1, in spite of its simple formula, may have great advantages for industrial applications of xylanase.

• Journal of Mushroom
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.305-309
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• 2015

In order to isolate compost-promoting bacteria with high activity of cellulase and xylanase, spent mushroom substrates with sawdust were collected from mushroom cultivation farm, Jinju, Gyeongnam in Korea. Among of the isolates, one strain, designated CA105 was selected by agar diffusion method. The strain CA105 was identified as members of the Bacillus subtilis by biochemical characteristics using VITEK 2 system. Comparative 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis showed that isolate CA105 formed a distinct phylogenetic tree within the genus Bacillus and was most closely related to Bacillus subtilis with 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity of 98.9%. On the basis of its physiological properties, biochemical characteristics and phylogenetic distinctiveness, isolate CA105 was classified within the genus Bacillus subtilis, for which the name Bacillus subtilis CA105 is proposed. The cellulase and xylanase activity of B. subtilis CA105 was slightly increased according to bacterial population from exponential phase to stationary phase in growth curve for Bacillus sp. CA105.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.574-582
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• 1992

Exo-xylanase encoded by the xylA gene of Bacillus stearothermoPhillus was produced from Escherichia coli ]M109 carrying a recombinant plasmid pMGL Synthesis of the enzyme was observed to be cell-associated, and about 94% of the enzyme synthesized was located in the cytoplasmic region. The maximum production was attained when the E. coli strain was grown at $37^{\circ}C$ for 8 hours on the medium containing 0.5% fructose, 1.0% tryptone, 1.0% sodium chloride, and 0.5% yeast extract. The exo-xylanase was purified to homogeneity using a combination of salting out with ammonium sulfate, DEAE-Sepharose CL-6B ion exchange chromatography, Sephadex G-IOO gel filtration, and Sephadex G-150 gel filtration. The' purified enzyme was most active at pH 6.0 and $45^{\circ}C$. $Ca^{2+}$ and $Co^{2+}$ activated the exo-xylanase activity by about 20% while $Ag^{2+}$, $Fe^{2+}$, $Mg^{2+}$ and $Zn^{2+}$ inhibited the enzyme activity by up to 60%. The $K_m$, value on p-nitrophenyl-$\beta$-D-xylanopyranoside was 2.75 mM. The enzyme had a pI value of 4.7. The estimated molecular weight of the native protein was 200,000 daL SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis analysis suggested that the native enzyme was a trimer composed of three identical 66,000 da!. polypeptides. The purified enzyme efficiently converted all the xylo-oligosaccharides tested to xylose. It was also confirmed that the enzyme split xylans in an exo-manner even though the degree of hydrolysis was fairly low. The xylanolytic enzyme was, therefore, classified to be one of the few bacterial exo-xylanases lacking transferase activity.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.16 no.11
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• pp.1753-1759
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• 2006

Paenibacillus sp. HY-8 isolated from the digestive tracts of the longicorn beetle, Moechotypa diphysis, produced an extracellular endoxylanase with a molecular weight of 20 kDa estimated by SDS-PAGE. The xylanase was purified to near electrophoretic homogeneity from the culture supernatant after ammonium sulfate precipitation, gel filtration, and ionexchange chromatography. The purified xylanase exhibited the highest activities at pH 6.0 and $50^{\circ}C$. The $K_m\;and\;V_{max}$ values were 7.2 mg/ml and 16.3 U/mg, respectively, for birchwood xylan as the substrate. Nucleotide sequence of the PCR-cloned gene was determined to have the open reading frame encoding a polypeptide of 212 amino acids. The N-terminal amino acid sequence and the nucleotide sequence analyses predicted that the precursor xylanase contained a signal peptide composed of 28 amino acids and a catalytically active 19.9-kDa peptide fragment. The deduced amino acid sequence shared extensive similarity with those of the glycoside hydrolase family 11 of xylanases from other bacteria. The predicted amino acid sequence contained two glutamate residues, previously identified as essential and conserved for active sites in other xylanases of the glycoside hydrolase family 11.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.19 no.9
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• pp.873-880
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• 2009

A novel xylanase gene, Kxyn, was cloned from Kocuria sp. Mn22, a bacteria isolated from the deep sea of the east Pacific. Kxyn consists of 1,170 bp and encodes a protein of 390 amino acids that shows the highest identity (63%) with a xylanase from Thermohifida fusca YX. The mature protein with a molecular mass of approximately 40 kDa was expressed in Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3). The recombinant Kxyn displayed its maximum activity at $55^{\circ}C$ and at pH 8.5. The $K_m,\;V_{max}$, and $k_{cat}$ values of Kxyn for birchwood xylan were 5.4 mg/ml, $272{\mu}mol/min{\cdot}mg$, and 185.1/s, respectively. Kxyn hydrolyzed birchwood xylan to produce xylobiose and xylotriose as the predominant products. The activity of Kxyn was not affected by $Ca^{2+},\;Mg^{2+},\;Na^+,\;K^+$, ${\beta}$-mercaptoethanol, DTT, or SDS, but was strongly inhibited by $Hg^{2+},\;Cu^{2+},Zn^{2+}$, and $Pb^{2+}$. It was stable over a wide pH range, retaining more than 80% activity after overnight incubation at pH 7.5-12. Kxyn is a cellulase-free xylanase. Therefore, these properties make it a candidate for various industrial applications.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.22 no.8
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• pp.1133-1140
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• 2012

Ribonucleic acid interference (RNAi) inhibits the expression of target genes in a sequence-specific manner, and shows potential for gene knockdown in filamentous fungi, in which the locus-specific gene knockout occurs in low frequency. In this study, the function of the repressor of cellulase expression I (ACEI) was verified in Trichoderma koningii (T. koningii) YC01 through RNAi, and ace1-silenced strains with improved cellulase productivity were obtained. An expression cassette that transcribed the interfering double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) of ace1 was constructed and transformed into T. koningii, and the transformants, in which the expression of ace1 was successfully silenced, were selected. As a result of the ace1 gene silencing, the expression levels of the main cellulase and xylanase genes were elevated, and the enhanced production of total proteins, cellulase, and xylanase was observed in the cultivation. In addition, the down-regulation of ace1 resulted in an increasing expression of xyr1, but no clear variation in the expression of cre1, which suggested that ACEI acted as a repressor of the xyr1 transcription, but was not involved in the regulation of the cre1 expression. The results of this work indicate that ace1 is a valid target gene for enhancing enzyme production in T. koningii, and RNAi is an appropriate tool for improving the properties of industrial fungi.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.43-50
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• 2017

A xylan-degrading bacterium (strain WJ-1) was isolated from soil collected from Jeju Island, Republic of Korea. Strain WJ-1 was characterized as a gram-positive, aerobic, and spore-forming bacterium. The predominant fatty acid in this bacterium was anteiso-$C_{15:0}$ (42.99%). A similarity search based on 16S rRNA gene sequences suggested that the strain belonged to the genus Streptomyces. Further, strain WJ-1 shared the highest sequence similarity with the type strains Streptomyces spinoveruucosus NBRC 14228, S. minutiscleroticus NBRC 13000, and S. glaucescens NBRC 12774. Together, they formed a coherent cluster in a phylogenetic tree based on the neighbor-joining algorithm. The DNA G+C content of strain WJ-1 was 74.7 mol%. The level of DNA-DNA relatedness between strain WJ-1 and the closest related species S. glaucescens NBRC 12774 was 85.7%. DNA-DNA hybridization, 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity, and the phenotypic and chemotaxonomic characteristics suggest that strain WJ-1 constitutes a novel subspecies of S. glaucescens. Thus, the strain was designated as S. glaucescens subsp. WJ-1 (Korean Agricultural Culture Collection [KACC] accession number 92086). Additionally, strain WJ-1 secreted thermostable endo-type xylanases that converted xylan to xylooligosaccharides such as xylotriose and xylotetraose. The enzymes exhibited optimal activity at pH 7.0 and $55^{\circ}C$.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.419-423
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• 2012

A xylanolytic bacterial strain, MX47, was isolated from rotting plant matter in soil. The strain was aerobic and gram positive, and grew between pH 6.0 and 11.0. Cells were susceptible to thiostrepton and chloramphenicol. The major fatty acids (>3%) comprised 64.55% of iso-$C_{15:0}$, 22.76% of anteiso-$C_{15:0}$, and 3.92% of iso-$C_{17:0}$. The G/C content of the DNA was 44.15 mol%. The predominant respiratory quinone was menaquinone 7 (MK-7). Searches for 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity as well as phylogenetic analyses strongly suggested that the strain should be classified to the genus Bacillus. However, its biochemical characteristics, including acid production and enzyme activities, are different from those of other Bacillus strains in the same clade, and therefore, we propose the name Bacillus sp. MX47.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.19 no.10
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• pp.1077-1084
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• 2009

A genomic library was constructed to clone a xylanase gene (Mxyn10) from Demequina sp. JK4 isolated from a deep sea. Mxyn10 encoded a 471 residue protein with a calculated molecular mass of 49 kDa. This protein showed the highest sequence identity (70%) with the xylanase from Streptomyces lividans. Mxyn10 contains a catalytic domain that belongs to the glycoside hydrolase family 10 (GH10) and a carbohydrate-binding module (CBM) belonging to family 2. The optimum pH and temperature for enzymatic activity were pH 5.5 and $55^{\circ}C$, respectively. Mxyn10 exhibited good pH stability, remaining stable after treatment with buffers ranging from pH 3.5 to 10.0. The protein was not significantly affected by a variety of chemical reagents, including some compounds that usually inhibit the activity of other related enzymes. In addition, Mxyn10 showed activity on cellulose. These properties mark Mxyn10 as a potential enzyme for industrial application and saccharification processes essential for bioethanol production.