• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.301-310
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• 2010

Bacillus subtilis strains produce a broad spectrum of bioactive peptides. The lipopeptide surfactin belongs to one well-known class, which includes amphiphilic membrane-active biosurfactants and peptide antibiotics. Both the srfA promoter and the ComP-ComA signal transduction system are an important part of the factor that results in the production of surfactin. Bs-M49, obtained by means of low-energy ion implantation in wild-type Bs-916, produced significantly lower levels of surfactin, and had no obvious effects against R. solani. Occasionally, we found strain Bs-M49 decreased spore formation and the development of competence. Blast comparison of the sequences from Bs-916 and M49 indicate that there is no difference in the srfA operon promoter PsrfA, but there are differences in the coding sequence of the comA gene. These differences result in three missense mutations within the M49 ComA protein. RT-PCR analyses results showed that the expression levels of selected genes involved in competence and sporulation in both the wild-type Bs-916 and mutant M49 strains were significantly different. When we integrated the comA ORF into the chromosome of M49 at the amyE locus, M49 restored hemolytic activity and antifungal activity. Then, HPLC analyses results also showed the comA-complemented strain had a similar ability to produce surf actin with wild-type strain Bs-916. These data suggested that the mutation of three key amino acids in ComA greatly affected the biological activity of Bacillus subtilis. ComA protein 3D structure prediction and motif search prediction indicated that ComA has two obvious motifs common to response regulator proteins, which are the N-terminal response regulator receiver motif and the C-terminal helix-turn-helix motif. The three residues in the ComA N-terminal portion may be involved in phosphorylation activation mechanism. These structural prediction results implicate that three mutated residues in the ComA protein may play an important role in the formation of a salt-bridge to the phosphoryl group keeping active conformation to subsequent regulation of the expression of downstream genes.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.215-221
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• 2009

Site-specific incorporation of unnatural amino acids into proteins in vivo can be achieved by co-expression of an orthogonal pair of suppressor tRNA and engineered aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase (ARS) that specifically ligates an unnatural amino acid to the suppressor tRNA. As a step to establish this technique, here we generated an Escherichia coli reporter strain DH10B(Tn:lacZam) by integrating amber mutated lacZ gene into the chromosome of E. coli DH10B strain. In vivo expression of E. coli amber suppressor $tRNA^{Gln}$ produced blue colonies in culture plates containing X-Gal as well as dramatically increased $\beta$-galactosidase activity. In addition, expression of an orthogonal pair of Saccharomyces cerevisiae suppressor $tRNA^{Tyr}$ and tyrosyl-tRNA synthetase also produced blue colonies as well as moderate increase of $\beta$-galactosidase activity. These data demonstrate that our reporter strain will provide an efficient method to assess amber suppression in both qualitative and quantitative manners.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.95-104
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• 2018

Biosurfactants or microbial surfactants are surface-active biomolecules that are produced by a variety of microorganisms. Biodegradability and low toxicity have led to the intensification of scientific studies on a wide range of industrial applications for biosurfactants in the field of environmental bioremediation as well as the petroleum industry and enhanced oil recovery. However, the major issues in biosurfactant production are high production cost and low yield. Improving the bioindustrial production processes relies on many strategies, such as the use of cheap raw materials, the optimization of medium-culture conditions, and selecting hyperproducing strains. The present work aims to obtain a mutant with higher biosurfactant production through applying mutagenesis on Bacillus subtilis SPB1 using a combination of UV irradiation and nitrous acid treatment. Following mutagenesis and screening on blood agar and subsequent formation of halos, the mutated strains were examined for emulsifying activity of their culture broth. A mutant designated B. subtilis M2 was selected as it produced biosurfactant at twice higher concentration than the parent strain. The potential of this biosurfactant for industrial uses was shown by studying its stability to environmental stresses such as pH and temperature and its applicability in the oil recovery process. It was practically stable at high temperature and at a wide range of pH, and it recovered above 90% of motor oil adsorbed to a sand sample.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.271-276
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• 2003

Bacillus amyloliquefaciens D4, which produces a strongly fibrinolytic enzyme, was isolated from Chungkook-Jang, a traditional Korean soybean-fermented food. B. amyloliquefaciens D4 was mutated with N-methyl-N-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine (MNNG) to yield a series of mutants with increasing levels of fibrinolytic enzyme production. After mutation, a mutant D4-7 was obtained with fibrinolytic activity about eight times stronger than the parent strain. The fibrinolytic activity of B. amyloliquefaciens D4-7, reached a maximum, when the producer was cultivated in 2% Isolated Soy Protein (ISP) broth for 48 h at $37^{\circ}C$. Compared to commercial fibrinolytic enzymes, the cell-free culture supernatant of B. amyloliquefaciens D4-7 showed stronger activity than plasmin and streptokinase. The optimum temperature and pH were $50^{\circ}C$ and 10.0 and thermostability was increased by the addition of glycerol, glucose, and NaCl.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.959-966
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• 2016

Chlorophyll synthase (ChlG) and bacteriochlorophyll synthase (BchG) have a high degree of substrate specificity. The BchG mutant of Rhodobacter sphaeroides, BG1 strain, is photosynthetically incompetent. When BG1 harboring chlG of Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 was cultured photoheterotrophically, colonies arose at a frequency of approximately 10^-8. All the suppressor mutants were determined to have the same mutational change, ChlG_I44F. The mutated enzyme ChlG_I44F showed BchG activity. Remarkably, BchG_F28I, which has the substitution of F at the corresponding 28^th residue to I, showed ChlG activity. The K_m values of ChlG_I44F and BchG_F28I for their original substrates, chlorophyllide (Chlide) a and bacteriochlorophyllide (Bchlide) a, respectively, were not affected by the mutations, but the K_m values of ChlG_I44F and BchG_F28I for the new substrates Bchlide a and Chlide a, respectively, were more than 10-fold larger than those for their original substrates, suggesting the lower affinities for new substrates. Taken together, I44 and F28 are important for the substrate specificities of ChlG and BchG, respectively. The BchG activity of ChlG_I44F and the ChlG activity of BchG_F28I further suggest that ChlG and BchG are evolutionarily related enzymes.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.1033-1039
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• 2008

A 3-kb HindIII fragment bearing the cry6Aa2 gene and the adjacent and intergenic regions was cloned from Bacillus thuringiensis strain YBT-1518. Two open reading frames (ORFs), namely, orf1 (termed cry6Aa2) and orf2 that were separated by an inverted-repeat sequence were identified. orf1 encoded a 54-kDa protein that exhibited high toxicity to the plant-parasitic nematode Meloidogyne hapla. The orf2 expression product was not detected by SDS-PAGE, but its mRNA was detected by RT-PCR. The orf2 coexpressed with orf1 at a high level in the absence of the inverted-repeat sequence, whereas, the expression level of otfl was decreased. When orf2 was mutated, the level of orf1 expression was enhanced obviously. In conclusion, the inverted-repeat sequence disturbs orf2 expression, and the orf2 downregulates orf1 expression. This is an example of novel negative regulation in B. thuringiensis and a potential method for enhancing the expression level of cry genes.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.20 no.11
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• pp.1555-1562
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• 2010

Development of the strain and the fermentation process of Hansenula polymorpha was implemented for the production of ${\gamma}$-linolenic acid ($GLA,\;C18:3{\Delta}^{6,9,12}$), an n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) that has been reported to possess a number of health benefits. The mutated ${\Delta}^6$-desaturase (S213A) gene of Mucor rouxii was expressed in H. polymorpha under the control of the methanol oxidase (MOX) promoter. Without the utilization of methanol, a high-cell-density culture of the yeast recombinant carrying the ${\Delta}^6$-desaturase gene was then achieved by fed-batch fermentation under glycerol-limited conditions. As a result, high levels of the ${\Delta}^6$-desaturated products, octadecadienoic acid ($C18:2{\Delta}^{6,9}$), GLA, and stearidonic acid ($C18:4{\Delta}^{6,9,12,15}$), were accumulated under the derepression conditions. The GLA production was also optimized by adjusting the specific growth rate. The results show that the specific growth rate affected both the lipid content and the fatty acid composition of the GLA-producing recombinant. Among the various specific growth rates tested, the highest GLA concentration of 697 mg/l was obtained in the culture with a specific growth rate of 0.08 /h. Interestingly, the fatty acid profile of the yeast recombinant bearing the Mucor ${\Delta}^6$-desaturase gene was similar to that of blackcurrant oil, with both containing similar proportions of n-3 and n-6 essential fatty acids.

• Proceedings of the Botanical Society of Korea Conference
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• 1999.08a
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• pp.55-67
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• 1999

A puc -deleted cell of Rhodobacter sphaeroides grows with a doubling time longer than 160 h under the light-limiting photoheterotrophic ( 3 Watts [W]/㎡) conditions due to an absence of the peripheral light-harvesting B800-850 complex. A spontaneous fast-growing mutant, R.sphaeroides SK101 was ioslate dto have∼40-h doubling at 3 Watts/㎡, while the growth of the mutant was not distinguished from its parental strain during both aerobic and light-saturating photoheterotrphic (10W/㎡) growth. The B875 complex of SK101 under the light-limiting conditions was elevated by 20 to 30% compared with that of the puc -deleted cell, reflecting parallel increase of bacteriochlorophyll and carotenoid contents of the mutant. The formation of B875 complex of SK101 under the anaerobic dark conditions with dimethylsulfoxide was the same as that of the puc-deleted cell. suggesting that the mutation of SK101 result in the altered control of B875 complex formation by light. When puc is restored in SK101 , it is not B875 complex but B800-850 complex which formation is elevated. The mutation of SK101 affected the bchF transcription most drastically to show two to tenfold increase during both aerobic and photoheterotrophic growth. The mutated phenotype of SK101 was complemented with pW2, which contains approximately 100-kb HNA of the photosynthetic gene clusters. The complementing DNA was narrowed down to a 1.1-kb DNA containing orfQ and pufKBA . The mutation of SK101 appeared to be exerted through the mutation of the orfQ gene encoding a putative bacteriochlorophyll -mobilizing protein.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.23 no.11
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• pp.1519-1528
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• 2013

Bacillus pumilus SG2, a halotolerant strain, expresses two major chitinases designated ChiS and ChiL that were induced by chitin and secreted into the supernatant. The present work aimed to obtain a mutant with higher chitinolytic activity through mutagenesis of Bacillus pumilus SG2 using a combination of UV irradiation and nitrous acid treatment. Following mutagenesis and screening on chitin agar and subsequent formation of halos, the mutated strains were examined for degradation of chitin under different conditions. A mutant designated AV2-9 was selected owing to its higher chitinase activity. To search for possible mutations in the whole operon including ChiS and ChiL, the entire chitinase operon, including the intergenic region, promoter, and two areas corresponding to the ChiS and ChiL ORF, was suquenced. Nucleotide sequence analysis of the complete chitinase operon from the SG2 and AV2-9 strains showed the presence of a mutation in the catalytic domain (GH18) of chitinase (ChiL). The results demonstrated that a single base change had occurred in the ChiL sequence in AV2-9. The wild-type chitinase, ChiL, and the mutant (designated ChiLm) were cloned, expressed, and purified in E. coli. Both enzymes showed similar profiles of activity at different ranges of pH, NaCl concentration, and temperature, but the mutant enzyme showed approximately 30% higher catalytic activity under all the conditions tested. The results obtained in this study showed that the thermal stability of chitinase increased in the mutant strain. Bioinformatics analysis was performed to predict changes in the stability of proteins caused by mutation.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.22-29
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• 2018

Incorporation of unique barcodes into fission yeast gene deletion collections has enabled the identification of gene functions by growth fitness analysis. For fine tuning, it is important to examine barcode sequences, because mutations arise during strain construction. Out of 8,708 barcodes (4,354 strains) covering 88.5% of all 4,919 open reading frames, 7,734 barcodes (88.8%) were validated as high-fidelity to be inserted at the correct positions by Sanger sequencing. Sequence examination of the 7,734 high-fidelity barcodes revealed that 1,039 barcodes (13.4%) deviated from the original design. In total, 1,284 mutations (mutation rate of 16.6%) exist within the 1,039 mutated barcodes, which is comparable to budding yeast (18%). When the type of mutation was considered, substitutions accounted for 845 mutations (10.9%), deletions accounted for 319 mutations (4.1%), and insertions accounted for 121 mutations (1.6%). Peculiarly, the frequency of substitutions (67.6%) was unexpectedly higher than in budding yeast (~28%) and well above the predicted error of Sanger sequencing (~2%), which might have arisen during the solid-phase oligonucleotide synthesis and PCR amplification of the barcodes during strain construction. When the mutation rate was analyzed by position within 20-mer barcodes using the 1,284 mutations from the 7,734 sequenced barcodes, there was no significant difference between up-tags and down-tags at a given position. The mutation frequency at a given position was similar at most positions, ranging from 0.4% (32/7,734) to 1.1% (82/7,734), except at position 1, which was highest (3.1%), as in budding yeast. Together, well-defined barcode sequences, combined with the next-generation sequencing platform, promise to make the fission yeast gene deletion library a powerful tool for understanding gene function.