• Macromolecular Research
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.1-5
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• 2008

The enzymatic hydrolysis of chitin has been studied for almost a century, and early work established that at least two enzymes are required, a chitinase that mainly yields the disaccharide N,N'-diacetylchitobiose, or $(GlcNAc)_2$, and a "chitobiase", or ${\beta}$-N-acetylglucosaminidase, which gives the final product G1cNAc. This pathway has not been completely identified but has remained the central concept for the chitin catabolism through the $20^{th}$ century1 including in marine bacteria. However, the chitin catabolic cascade is quite complex, as described in this review. This report describes three biologically functional genes involved in the chitin catabolic cascade of Vibrios in an attempt to better understand the metabolic pathway of chitin.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.28 no.11
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• pp.1850-1858
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• 2018

Glucosamine (GlcN) is widely used in the nutraceutical and pharmaceutical industries. Currently, GlcN is mainly produced by traditional multistep chemical synthesis and acid hydrolysis, which can cause severe environmental pollution, require a long prodution period but a lower yield. The aim of this work was to develop a whole-cell biocatalytic process for the environment-friendly synthesis of glucosamine (GlcN) from N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc). We constructed a recombinant Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis strains as efficient whole-cell biocatalysts via expression of diacetylchitobiose deacetylase ($Dac_{ph}$) from Pyrococcus furiosus. Although both strains were biocatalytically active, the performance of B. subtilis was better. To enhance GlcN production, optimal reaction conditions were found: B. subtilis whole-cell biocatalyst 18.6 g/l, temperature $40^{\circ}C$, pH 7.5, GlcNAc concentration 50 g/l and reaction time 3 h. Under the above conditions, the maximal titer of GlcN was 35.3 g/l, the molar conversion ratio was 86.8% in 3-L bioreactor. This paper shows an efficient biotransformation process for the biotechnological production of GlcN in B. subtilis that is more environmentally friendly than the traditional multistep chemical synthesis approach. The biocatalytic process described here has the advantage of less environmental pollution and thus has great potential for large-scale production of GlcN in an environment-friendly manner.

• The Korean Journal of Mycology
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.168-174
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• 2003

In this study, Cordyceps militaris was grown in a liquid medium containing colloidal chitin. A chitinase was purified from the supernatant or cultured medium by ammonium sulfate fractionation, DEAE-Sephadex A-25 and Sephadex G-50 column chromatography. Optimum temperature and pH of this enzyme were $35^{\circ}C$ and 5.5, respectively. The molecular weight of the chitinase was estimated to be 48.5 kDa by SDS-PAGE and its Km value was 0.57 mM. The activity of this enzyme was inhibited by $Cu^{2+},\;Mn^{2+},\;Hg^{2+},\;Zn^{2+},\;CO_{3}^{2-},\;SO_4^{2-},\;CN^-,\;ion,\;and\;OCN^-$ maleic anhydride, acetic anhydride or N-bromo succinimide, especially strongly inhibited by sodium cyanate for 84.0 percentage. But its activity wag slightly stimulated by $Mg^{2+}\;and\;K^+$ ion, respectively. The products formed during hydrolysis of the hexa-N-acetylchitohexaose with this enzyme were N,N'-diacetylchitobiose and N,N',N'-triacetylchitotriose. These results imply that this purified enzyme may be an endo-chitinase.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.107-113
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• 1997

A strain producing a high amount of chitinase was isolated from soil, identified as Pseudomonas sp., and tentatively named Pseudomonas sp. YHS-A2. An extracellular chitinase of Pseudomonas sp. YHS-A2 was purified according to the procedure of ammonium sulfate saturation, affinity adsorption, Sephadex G-100 gel filtration and Phenyl-sepharose CL-4B hydrophobic interaction column chromatography. The molecular weight of the purified enzyme was estimated to be 55 kDa on SDS-PAGE was confirmed by active staining. Optimal pH and temperature of the enzyme are pH 7.0 and $50^{\circ}C$, respectively, and the enzyme is stable between pH 5.0 and 8.0 and below $50^{\circ}C$. The main products of colloidal chitin by the chitinase were N-acetyl-D-glucosamine and N,N'-diacetylchitobiose both of which were detected by HPLC analysis. The enzyme is supposed to be a random-type endochitinase which can degrade any position of ${\beta}$-l,4-linkages of chitin and chitooligosaccharides. The chitinase inhibited the growth of some phytopathogenic fungi, Fusarium oxysporum, Botrytis cineria, and Mucor rouxii and these antifungal effects were thought to be due to the characteristics of endochitinase.