• 한국균학회소식:학술대회논문집
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• 2014.05a
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• pp.27-28
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• 2014

Beauveria bassiana (Cordycipitaceae, Hypocreales, Ascomycota) is an anamorphic fungus having a potential to be used as a biological control agent because it parasitizes a wide range of arthropod hosts including termites, aphids, beetles and many other insects. A number of bioactive secondary metabolites (SMs) have been isolated from B. bassiana and functionally verified. Among them, beauvericin and bassianolide are cyclic depsipeptides with antibiotic and insecticidal effects belonging to the enniatin family. Non-ribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPSs) play a crucial role in the synthesis of these secondary metabolites. NRPSs are modularly organized multienzyme complexes in which each module is responsible for the elongation of proteinogenic and non-protein amino acids, as well as carboxyl and hydroxyacids. A minimum of three domains are necessary for one NRPS elongation module: an adenylation (A) domain for substrate recognition and activation; a tholation (T) domain that tethers the growing peptide chain and the incoming aminoacyl unit; and a condensation (C) domain to catalyze peptide bond formation. Some of the optional domains include epimerization (E), heterocyclization (Cy) and oxidation (Ox) domains, which may modify the enzyme-bound precursors or intermediates. In the present study, we analyzed genomes of B. bassiana and its allied species in Hypocreales to verify the distribution of NRPS-encoding genes involving biosynthesis of beauvericin and bassianolide, and to unveil the evolutionary processes of the gene clusters. Initially, we retrieved completely or partially assembled genomic sequences of fungal species belonging to Hypocreales from public databases. SM biosynthesizing genes were predicted from the selected genomes using antiSMASH program. Adenylation (A) domains were extracted from the predicted NRPS, NRPS-like and NRPS-PKS hybrid genes, and used them to construct a phylogenetic tree. Based on the preliminary results of SM biosynthetic gene prediction in B. bassiana, we analyzed the conserved gene orders of beauvericin and bassianolide biosynthetic gene clusters among the hypocrealean fungi. Reciprocal best blast hit (RBH) approach was performed to identify the regions orthologous to the biosynthetic gene cluster in the selected fungal genomes. A clear recombination pattern was recognized in the inferred A-domain tree in which A-domains in the 1st and 2nd modules of beauvericin and bassianolide synthetases were grouped in CYCLO and EAS clades, respectively, suggesting that two modules of each synthetase have evolved independently. In addition, inferred topologies were congruent with the species phylogeny of Cordycipitaceae, indicating that the gene fusion event have occurred before the species divergence. Beauvericin and bassianolide synthetases turned out to possess identical domain organization as C-A-T-C-A-NM-T-T-C. We also predicted precursors of beauvericin and bassianolide synthetases based on the extracted signature residues in A-domain core motifs. The result showed that the A-domains in the 1st module of both synthetases select D-2-hydroxyisovalerate (D-Hiv), while A-domains in the 2nd modules specifically activate L-phenylalanine (Phe) in beauvericin synthetase and leucine (Leu) in bassianolide synthetase. antiSMASH ver. 2.0 predicted 15 genes in the beauvericin biosynthetic gene cluster of the B. bassiana genome dispersed across a total length of approximately 50kb. The beauvericin biosynthetic gene cluster contains beauvericin synthetase as well as kivr gene encoding NADPH-dependent ketoisovalerate reductase which is necessary to convert 2-ketoisovalarate to D-Hiv and a gene encoding a putative Gal4-like transcriptional regulator. Our syntenic comparison showed that species in Cordycipitaceae have almost conserved beauvericin biosynthetic gene cluster although the gene order and direction were sometimes variable. It is intriguing that there is no region orthologous to beauvericin synthetase gene in Cordyceps militaris genome. It is likely that beauvericin synthetase was present in common ancestor of Cordycipitaceae but selective gene loss has occurred in several species including C. militaris. Putative bassianolide biosynthetic gene cluster consisted of 16 genes including bassianolide synthetase, cytochrome P450 monooxygenase, and putative Gal4-like transcriptional regulator genes. Our synteny analysis found that only B. bassiana possessed a bassianolide synthetase gene among the studied fungi. This result is consistent with the groupings in A-domain tree in which bassianolide synthetase gene found in B. bassiana was not grouped with NRPS genes predicted in other species. We hypothesized that bassianolide biosynthesizing cluster genes in B. bassiana are possibly acquired by horizontal gene transfer (HGT) from distantly related fungi. The present study showed that B. bassiana is the only species capable of producing both beauvericin and bassianolide. This property led to B. bassiana infect multiple hosts and to be a potential biological control agent against agricultural pests.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.267-274
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• 2014

High pressure processing (HPP) is a non-thermal method used to prevent bacterial growth in the food industry. Currently, pasteurization is the most common method in use for most milk processing, but this has the disadvantage that it leads to changes in the milk's nutritional and chemical properties. Therefore, the effects of HPP treatment on the microbiological and chemical properties of milk were investigated in this study. With the treatment of HPP at 600 MPa and $15^{\circ}C$ for 3 min, the quantity of microorganisms and lactic acid bacteria were reduced to the level of 2-3 log CFU/ml, and coliforms were not detected during a storage period of 15 d at $4^{\circ}C$. An analysis of milk proteins, such as ${\alpha}$-casein, ${\beta}$-casein, ${\kappa}$-casein, ${\alpha}$-lactalbumin, ${\beta}$-lactoglobulin by on-chip electorophoresis revealed that the electrophoretic pattern of the proteins from HPP-treated milk was different from that of conventionally treated commercial milk. While the quantities of vitamins and minerals in HPP-treated milk were seen to be comparable to amounts found in raw milk, the enzyme activity of lipase, protease and alkaline phosphatase after HPP treatment was reduced. These results suggest that HPP treatment is a viable method for the control of undesirable microorganisms in milk, allowing for minimal nutritional and chemical changes in the milk during the process.

• Journal of Acupuncture Research
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.1-12
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• 2005

It was clarified that ethanol extract herb-acupuncture solution (EE-UD) and hydrotherapy herb-acupuncture solution (WE-UD) in Ulmus davidiana Planch (Ulmaceae), are the excellent inhibitors of cathepsin K and L. WE-UD inhibited cathepsin K when IC50 value was 5.32 ${\square}g$/ml, and suppressed cathepsin L when IC50 value was 6.34 ${\square}g$/ml. However, EE-UD indicated the activity of inhibiting cathepsin K and L in the level of 1.45 ${\square}g$/ml and 2.43 ${\square}g$/ml, thus it showed more significance than WE-UD. It could be observed that EE-VD is an excellent inhibitor to cathepsin K with Ki value of 0.8 ${\square}g$/ml. This activity is increased by 10-fold even in the analytical experiment when having operations like glutathione in pH 7.0. Also, this supports the mixture of GSH thiolate anion, thus it was thought that this increase in effectiveness is probably attributable to the enhanced chemical function in the combinations of herb-acupuncture solution towards a place of activity in enzyme. WE-UD showed the time-dependent inhibiting property, thus it allowed to know the disunion and the compounding speed in constant cathepsin K during the process of experiment. Finally, EE-UD was proved to suppress the absorbent bone ash in the experiment related to osteoclast in rats for test, and to the bone in rodent. It was proved that WE-UD has the effect of inhibiting the protease in cathepsin K and L, and in collagen of bone. These results strongly suggest that it is effective in preventing the progress of bone damage, which was induced due to cathepsin K. Also, it obtained the conclusion that it is effective to the reabsorption activity of bone in the bone marrow cells.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.153-161
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• 2002

Sox4, a transcription factor, consists of three functional domains: an HMG-box domain as a DNA binding domain, serine rich region as a transactivation domain and glycine rich region (GRR), an unknown functional domain. Although Sox4 is known to be functionally involved in heart, B-cell and reproductive system development, its physiological function remains to be elucidated. We used pGEX expression system to develop a simple and rapid method for purifying Sox4 protein in suitable forms for biochemical studies of their functions. Unexpectedly, we observed that full-length Sox4 appears to be protease-sensitive during expression and purification in E. coli. To map the protease-sensitive site in Sox4, we generated various constructs with each of functional domains of Sox4 and purified as the GST-Sox4 fusion proteins using glutathione beads. We found that the specific cleavage site for the proteolytic enzyme, which exists in E. coli, is localized within the novel GRR of Sox4. Our study suggest that the GRR of Sox4 may a target for the cellular protease action and this cleavage in the GRR may be involved in regulating physiological function of Sox4. Additionally, our study may provide a useful method for investigating the proteolytic cleavage of the target molecule in E. coli.