• Mycobiology
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.353-360
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• 2014

Makgeolli is a traditional Korean alcoholic beverage. The flavor of makgeolli is primarily determined by metabolic products such as free sugars, amino acids, organic acids, and aromatic compounds, which are produced during the fermentation of raw materials by molds and yeasts present in nuruk, a Korean fermentation starter. In this study, makgeolli was brewed using the wild yeast strain Saccharomyces cerevisiae Y98-5, and temporal changes in the metabolites during fermentation were analyzed by ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole-time-of-flight mass spectrometry. The resultant data were analyzed by partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA). Various metabolites, including amino acids, organic acids, sugar alcohols, small peptides, and nucleosides, were obviously altered by increasing the fermentation period. Changes in these metabolites allowed us to distinguish among makgeolli samples with different fermentation periods (1, 2, 3, 6, 7, and 8 days) on a PLS-DA score plot. In the makgeolli brewed in this study, the amounts of tyrosine ($463.13{\mu}g/mL$) and leucine ($362.77{\mu}g/mL$) were high. Therefore, our results indicate that monitoring the changes in metabolites during makgeolli fermentation might be important for brewing makgeolli with good nutritional quality.

• BMB Reports
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.363-367
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• 1995

E. coli methionyl-tRNA synthetase is one of the class I tRNA synthetases. The Tryptophane residue at the position 461 located in the C-terminal domain of the enzyme is a key amino acid for the interaction with the anticodon of $tRNA^{Met}$. W461 was replaced with other amino acids to determine the chemical requirement for the interaction with the anticodon of $tRNA^{Met}$. Saturation mutagenesis at the position 461 generated a total of 12 substitution mutants of methionyl-tRNA synthetase. All the mutants showed the same in vivo stability as the wild-type enzyme, suggesting that the amino acid substitutions did not cause severe conformational change of the protein The mutants containing tyrosine, phenylalanine, histidine and cysteine substitutions showed in vivo activity while all the other mutants did not. The comparison of the in vitro aminoacylation activities of these mutants showed that aromatic ring structure, Van der Waals volume and hydrogen bond potential of the amino acid residue at the position 461 are the major determinants for the interaction with the anticodon of $tRNA^{Met}$.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.185-193
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• 1997

The characteristics of $Na^+$-dependent cycloleucine uptake was investigated in OK cells with regard to substrate specificity and regulation by protein kinase C (PKC). Inhibition studies with different synthetic and natural amino acids showed a broad spectrum affinity to neutral amino acids regardless of their different side chains including branched or aromatic, indicating that the $Na^+$-dependent cycloleucine uptake in OK cells is mediated by System $B^o$ or System $B^o$-like transporter rather than the classical System A or ASC. Phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA) and phorbol 12,13-dibutyrate, but not $4{\alpha}-PMA$ elicited a time-dependent biphasic stimulation of $Na^+$-dependent cycloleucine uptake, which produced early transient peak at 30 min and late sustained peak at 180min. Both the early and late stimulations by PMA were due to an increase in Vmax and not due to a change in Km. PKC inhibitors blocked both the early and late stimulation by PMA, while protein synthesis inhibitors blocked the late stimulation only. These results suggest the existence and regulation by PKC of System $B^o$ or System $B^o$-like broad spectrum transport system for neutral amino acids in OK cells.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.17 no.2 s.82
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• pp.286-292
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• 2007

Free amino acids and volatile compounds of fresh garlic and its liqueur were investigated to search elution profile of those components as basic data for development of garlic liqueur. The garlic was soaked in 20% alcohol solution and then sampled every week for 5 weeks. The major free amino acids were L-aspartic acid, L-glutamic acid, L-arginine, L-alanine, L-proline, L-asparagine and L-serine. Neutral amino acids such as L-threonine, L-proline, L-valine and L-leucine, and aromatic amino acids such as tyrosine and phenylalanine were eluted over 80% of those content in fresh garlic after 3 weeks of soaking, but acidic, basic and sulfur containing amino acids were below 80% even after 5 weeks. Sulfide compounds such as diallyl trisulfide, diallyl disulfide, methyl allyl disulfide, 2-vinyl-4H-1,3-dithi in, 3-vinyl-3,4-dihydro-1,2-dithiin, 3,5-diethyl-1,24-trithiolane, isobutyl isothiocyanate and diallyl sulfide were identified as major volatile compounds of fresh garlic by using GC/MS. Among volatile compounds of fresh garlic, allyl alcohol, diallyl disulfide, 3,5-diethyl-1,2,4-trithiolane, diallyl trisulfide and 3,4-dimethoxy furan were eluted to liqueur, but those compounds except 3,5-diethyl-1,2,4-trithiolane were lowered in liqueur during soaking. Furfural, 5-methylfurfural, 5-hydroxymethylfurfural, dimethyl pyrazine, furfuryl alcohol, 3-hydroxy-2-bytanone and 2,3-dihydro-3,5-dihydroxy-6-methyl-4H-pyr-an-4-one were generated newly and their content increased in liqueur during soaking.

• Journal of Microbiology
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.153-157
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• 2007

5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase (EPSP synthase, EC 2.5.1.19) is the sixth enzyme in the shikimate pathway which is essential for the synthesis of aromatic amino acids and many secondary metabolites. The enzyme is widely involved in glyphosate tolerant transgenic plants because it is the primary target of the nonselective herbicide glyphosate. In this study, the Dunaliella salina EPSP synthase gene was cloned by RT-PCR approach. It contains an open reading frame encoding a protein of 514 amino acids with a calculated molecular weight of 54.6 KDa. The derived amino acid sequence showed high homology with other EPSP synthases. The Dunaliella salina EPSP synthase gene was expressed in Escherichia coli and the recombinant EPSP synthase were identified by functional complementation assay.

• Mycobiology
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.327-332
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• 2015

Phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL) gene is known to be expressed in plants, and is involved in the differentiation, growth and synthesis of secondary metabolites. However, its expression in fungi remains to be explored. To understand its expression in mushroom fungi, the PAL gene of the edible mushroom Flammulina velutipes (Fvpal) was cloned and characterized. The cloned Fvpal consists of 2,175 bp, coding for a polypeptide containing 724 amino acids and having 11 introns. The translated amino acid sequence of Fvpal shares a high identity (66%) with that of ectomycorrhizal fungus Tricholoma matsutake. Distinctively, the Fvpal expression in the mycelium was higher in minimal medium supplemented with L-tyrosine than with other aromatic amino acids. During cultivation of the mushroom on sawdust medium, Fvpal expression in the fruit body correspondingly increased as the mushroom grew. In the fruiting body, Fvpal was expressed more in the stipe than in the pileus. These results suggest that F. velutipes PAL activity differs in the different organs of the mushroom. Overall, this is first report to show that the PAL gene expression is associated with mushroom growth in fungi.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.75-79
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• 2009

The effect of inorganic, organic nitrogen sources and amino acids on the coenzyme $Q_{10}$ production and coenzyme $Q_{10}$ component ratio was investigated. Among the nine organic nitrogen sources, CSP showed a remarkable enhancing effect on the production of coenzyme $Q_{10}$. But this enhancement was not observed in medium containing Bacto peptone, tryptone, casamino acid and soybean meal. These differences on the production of coenzyme $Q_{10}$ may be due to differences in kinds and amounts of component amino acids and peptides in the various organic nitrogen sources tested. In the addition of inorganic nitrogens, only $(NH_4)_2SO_4$ increase the coenzyme $Q_{10}$ production by 2.0 times compare to the control group. The addition of L-tyrosine to the medium containing Bacto tryptone, was also determined to be crucial for the coenzyme $Q_{10}$ production. But phenylalanin and tryptophan, other aromatic amino acids, had no stimulatory effect on the coenzyme $Q_{10}$ production. These results show that the production and components ratio of coenzyme $Q_{10}$ was greatly affected by the kinds and the concentration of inorganic, organic nitrogen sources as well as amino acids.

• Journal of Microbiology
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.50-53
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• 2006

Cys-29 and Cys-251 of Streptomyces albus valine dehydrogenase(ValDH) were highly conserved in the corresponding region of $NAD(P)^+$-dependent amino acid dehydroganase sequences. To ascertain the functional role of these cysteine residues in S. albus ValDH, site-directed mutagenesis was performed to change each of the two residues to serine. Kinetic analyses of the enzymes mutated at Cys-29 and Cys-251 revealed that these residues are involved in catalysis. We also constructed mutant ValDH by substituting valine for leucine at 305 by site-directed mutagenesis. This residue was chosen, because it has been proposed to be important for substrate discrimination by phenylalanine dehydrogenase (PheDH) and leucine dehydrogenase (LeuDH). Kinetic analysis of the V305L mutant enzyme revealed that it is involved in the substrate binding site. However it displayed less activity than the wild type enzyme toward all aliphatic and aromatic amino acids tested.

• Proceedings of the PSK Conference
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• 2002.04a
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• pp.219.4-220
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• 2002

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Life Science Conference
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• 2001.11a
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• pp.21-28
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• 2001

A newly isolated Aspergillus niger possessing the novel epoxide hydrolase(EHase) activity was investigated for the enantioselective hydrolysis of racemic aromatic epoxides. The gene encoding EHase was cloned by RT-PCR, and molecular characteristics of the EHase gene were compared with other microbial EHases. The cloned gene encodes 398 amino acids with a deduced molecular mass of 44.5 kDa and pI of 4.83, and sequence homology with other microbial EHase was low. Functional recombinant EHase could be obtained by heterologous expressions in E. coli. Enantioselectivity of recombinant EHase was tested for valuable aromatic epoxide intermediates. Reaction conditions of EHase-catalyzed asymmetric resolution were optimized for the production of chiral styrene oxide.