• Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.38 no.5
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• pp.387-392
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• 1995

To study the regulatory expression mechanism of soybean glycinin gone, Gy2, the 5' upstream region of the gene was searched for the presence of putative regulatory elements by nucleotide sequencing. It revealed various kinds of regulatory sequence elements commonly found in plant storage protein genes. There were canonical promoter sequences, TATA box (TATAAT) and AGGA box (GAAT) which are common in the 5' upstream region of the plant genes. The embryo factor binding sequence, RY repeat, CACA sequences, ${\alpha}$-conglycinin enhancer-like sequences were also found. To delineate the function of these sequences, 5' upstream deletion mutants of Gy2 were prepared and fused to the ${\alpha}$-glucuronidase (GUS) gene. Each chimeric construct was transferred into soybean protoplasts for transient assay, which led to the identification of the sequences between -281 and -223, -170 and -122, of Gy2 promoter as negative regulatory elements, and the sequences between -223 and -170, -122 and -16 as positive regulatory elements. These results are consistent in transformed tobacco plants as well. The serially deleted promoter fragments fused to the GUS were transformed into Nicotiana tabacum by Agrobacterium tumefaciens using the binary vector system. GUS activity of Gy2 promoter deletion constructs was detected only in seeds but not in leaves with different levels of expression as in transient assay. These results suggest that the glycinin Gy2 promoter drives a tissue-specific expression in transgenic tobacco plants.

• BMB Reports
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.414-419
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• 2005

The production of recombinant antibodies has been generally recognized as time-consuming and labor-intensive. The aim of our study is to construct mammalian expression vectors containing the cDNA encoding the human constant regions and murine variable regions to massively and cost-effectively produce full-length chimeric antibodies. Unique restriction sites flanking the Ig variable region were designed to allow for the replacement of variable regions generated by PCR. Western blot analysis of the chimeric antibodies revealed that the expressed products were of the predicted size, structure and specificity. The usefulness of the vectors was confirmed by construction of human-mouse chimeric antibody-HCAb which secretes murine antibody against the human colorectal cancer. Selected in medium containing gradually increasing methotrexate (MTX), clones with increased expression of the product gene can be efficiently generated. The secretion of recombinant chimeric antibody-HCAb yielded $30\;pg\;cell^{-1}\;day^{-1}$ at $10^{-6}\;M$ MTX. With this high-level expression from pools, the convenient and rapid production of over 100 milligram amounts per liter of recombinant antibodies may be achieved, which indicates the significant roles of pYR-GCEVH and pYR-GCEVL in the production of chimeric antibodies.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.85-90
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• 1999

In order to protect fungal diseases, leaf disc explants of Solanum tuberosum cultivar, Belchip, was infected with an Agrobacterium MP90 strain containing chimeric gene construct, consisting of antibiotic resistance and chitinase gene driven by the CaMV 35S promoter, for transformation. Regenerated multiple shoots were selected on a medium containing kanamycin and carbenicillin after exposure to Agrobacterium. The presence and integration of the npt II and chitinase gene were confirmed by polymerase chain reaction(PCR). Northern blot analysis indicated that the genes coding for the enzyme could be expressed in potato plants. The chitinase activity of transgenic potato plants was higher than the control potato.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.19 no.10
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• pp.1169-1175
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• 2009

An antifungal chitinase, ChiCW, produced by Bacillus cereus 28-9 is effective against conidial germination of Botrytis elliptica, the causal agent of lily leaf blight. ChiCW as a modular enzyme consists of a signal peptide, a catalytic domain, a fibronectin type-III-like domain, and a chitin-binding domain. When two C-terminal domains of ChiCW were truncated, $ChiCW{\Delta}FC$ (lacking the chitin-binding domain and fibronectin type III-like domain) lost its antifungal activity. Since $ChiCW{\Delta}C$ (lacking the chitin-binding domain) could not be expressed in Escherichia coli as $ChiCW{\Delta}FC$ did, a different strategy based on protein engineering technology was designed to investigate the involvement of the chitin-binding domain of ChiCW ($ChBD_{ChiCW}$) in antifungal activity in this study. Because ChiA1 of Bacillus circulans WL-12 is a modular enzyme with a higher hydrolytic activity than ChiCW but not inhibitory to conidial germination of Bo. elliptica and the similar domain composition of ChiA1 and ChiCW, the C-terminal truncated derivatives of ChiA1 were generated and used to construct chimeric chitinases with $ChBD_{ChiCW}$. When the chitin-binding domain of ChiA1 was replaced with $ChBD_{ChiCW}$, the chimeric chitinase named ChiAAAW exhibited both high enzyme activity and antifungal activity. The results indicate that $ChBD_{ChiCW}$ may play an important role in the antifungal activity of ChiCW.

• IMMUNE NETWORK
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.150-157
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• 2002

Background: Although Tat plays a role as a potent transactivator in the viral gene expression from the Human Immunodeficiency Virus type 1 long terminal repeat (HIV-1 LTR), it does not function efficiently in rodent cells implying the absence of a human specific factor essential for Tat-medicated transactivation in rodent cells. In previous experiments, we demonstrated that one of chimeric forms of TAR (transacting responsive element) of HIV-1 LTR compensated the restriction in rodent cells. Methods: To characterize the nature of the compensation, we tested the effects of several upstream binding factors of HIV-1 LTR by simple substitution, and also examined the role of the configuration of the upstream binding factor(s) indirectly by constructing spacing mutants that contained insertions between Sp1 and TATA box on Tat-mediated transactivation. Results: Human Sp1 had no effect whereas its associated factors displayed differential effects in human and rodent cells. In addition, none of the spacing mutants tested overcame the restriction in rodent cells. Rather, when the secondary structure of the chimeric HIV-1 TAR construct was destroyed, the compensation in rodent cells was disappeared. Interestingly, the proper interaction between Sp1 and TATA box binding proteins, which is essential for Tat-dependent transcription, was dispensable in rodent cells. Conclusion: This result suggests that the human-specific Tat cofactor acts to allow Tat to interact effectively in a ribonucleoprotein complex that includes Tat, cellular factors, and TAR RNA, rather than be associated with the HIV-1 LTR upstream DNA binding factors.

• Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.355-360
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• 1996

In vitro-tested ribozyme against synthesized cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) RNA (Agric. Chem. & Biotech. 37:56-63(1994)) was expressed in tobacco plant to develop virus resistant plants. The ribozyme sequence was linked to cauliflower mosaic virus 35S promoter and nopaline synthase(nos) terminator and this chimeric 35S-ribozyme-nos gene was sequenced. The sequenced chimeric gene was transferred to Agrobacterium tumefaciens LBA4404 using tri-parental mating system. The E. coli HB101 containing chimeric gene was incubated with E. coli HB101(pRK2073) as a helper and Agrobacterium tumefaciens LBA4404. Then Agrobacterium cells containing the ribozyme construct was cocultivated with tobacco leaf pieces. Ten different plants were regenerated from kanamycin containing MS medium. The presence of the ribozyme construct in the transgenic tobacco plants was confirmed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Seven different transgenic plants in ten different kanamycin resistant plants showed the expected size (570 base pairs) of 35S-ribozyme-nos gene fragment. Total RNAs were isolated from four different transgenic plants and separated on a 1% agarose gel containing formamide. Northern hybridization with 35S-ribozyme-nos gene fragment as a probe indicated that ribozyme transcripts may be degraded tv nuclease. Therefore, nuclease-resistant ribozymes are needed for the development of virus-resistant transgenic plants using ribozymes.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.13-17
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• 2001

A Chromium (VI)[Cr(VI)] reductase gene from heavy metal reducing bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa HP014 was used to transform tobacco plant cells. A chimeric construct containing the Cr(VI) reductase gene was transfered to tobacco leaf disks using an Agrobacteriun tumefaciens binary vector system. From the leaf disks, transformed plantlets were regenerated. Hybridization experiments demonstrated that the Cr(VI) reductase gene was inserted into and expressed in the regenerated plants. The Cr(VI) reduction activity showed that the transgenic plants may be a another possible tool to reduce the pollution of the toxic Cr(VI) in soil.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.833-839
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• 2021

Bacillus subtilis CH3-5 isolated from cheonggukjang secretes a 28 kDa protease with a strong fibrinolytic activity. Its gene, aprE3-5, was cloned and expressed in a heterologous host (Jeong et al., 2007). In this study, the promoter of aprE3-5 was replaced with other stronger promoters (P_cry3A, P₁₀, P_SG1, P_srfA) of Bacillus spp. using PCR. The constructed chimeric genes were cloned into pHY300PLK vector, and then introduced into B. subtilis WB600. The P10 promoter conferred the highest fibrinolytic activity, i.e., 1.7-fold higher than that conferred by the original promoter. Overproduction of the 28 kDa protease was confirmed using SDS-PAGE and fibrin zymography. RT-qPCR analysis showed that aprE3-5 expression was 2.0-fold higher with the P10 promoter than with the original promoter. Change of the initiation codon from GTG to ATG further increased the fibrinolytic activity. The highest aprE3-5 expression was observed when two copies of the P₁₀ promoter were placed in tandem upstream of the ATG initiation codon. The construct with P10 promoter and ATG and the construct with two copies of P10 promoter in tandem and ATG exhibited 117% and 148% higher fibrinolytic activity, respectively, than that exhibited by the construct containing P10 promoter and GTG. These results confirmed that significant overproduction of a fibrinolytic enzyme can be achieved by suitable promoter modification, and this approach may have applications in the industrial production of AprE3-5 and related fibrinolytic enzymes.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.114-119
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• 2008

The molecular machinery controlling cell cycle is centered around the regulation of the activity of maturation-promoting factor (MPF), a complex composed of a catalytic Cdc2 and the cyclinB regulatory subunit. Cdc2 kinase is inactivated by phosphorylation of inhibitory kinase, Wee1. It has been known that there are three different Wee1 kinases in the mammalian cell, Wee1A, Wee1B and Myt1. To investigate the regulatory mechanism of Wee1 kinases, the phosphorylation and degradation of Wee1A and Wee1B were checked in the Xenopus oocyte cell cycle. When Wee1 kinases were injected into frog oocyte, Wee1B was more stable than Wee1A. Wee1A and Wee1B kinase were phosphorylated by many kinases such as PKA and Akt. The roles of amino or carboxyl terminal in mouse Wee1A or Wee1B kinase were investigated using chimeric constructs. The degree of protein phosphorylation, degradation and cell cycle progression were different between chimeric constructs. The amino domain of Wee1A was implicated in the protein phosphorylation and degradation while amino domain of Wee1B and carboxyl domain of Wee1A were involved in the activity regulation. These results suggested that the domains of Wee1 kinase have different and significant roles in regulating the Wee1 kinases in the cell cycle progression.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.288-292
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• 2005

Pathogenesis-related protein-1a (PR-1a) is strongly induced in tobacco plants by pathogen attack, exogenous salicylic acid (SA) application and by other developmental processes. In order to develop a rapid screening system for the selection of plant defense-inducing compounds originated from various sources, we have transformed tobacco Samsun NN plants with a chimeric construct consisting of GUS $(\beta-glucuronidase)$. In the $T_1$ generation, three transgenic lines having stable GUS expression were selected for further promoter analysis. Using GUS histochemical assay, we observed strong GUS induction driven by PR-1a promoter in PR1a-GUS transgenic tobacco leaves in response to the exogenous application of SA or benzol (1,2,3) thiadiazole-7-carbothioic acid S-methyl ester (BTH), a SA­derivative compound. In addition, GUS expression was maintained locally or systemically in PR1a-GUS transgenic line $\#5\;T_2$ generation) until after 3 days when they were treated with same chemicals. Our results suggested that the PR1a-GUS reporter gene system in tobacco plants may be applicable for the large-scale screening of defense-inducing substances.