• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.16 no.1
• /
• pp.5-14
• /
• 2006

Streptomycetes are Gram-positive microorganisms producing secondary metabolites through unique physiological differentiation [4]. The microbes show unusual morphological differentiation to form substrate mycelia, aerial mycelia, and arthrospores on solid medium [19]. Substrate mycelium growth is sustaining with sufficient nutrients in the culture medium. The concentration of a specific individual substrate in the culture environment is the most important extracellular factor allowing vegetative mycelia growth, where extracellular hydrolytic enzymes participate in the utilization of waterinsoluble substrates. However, with starvation of nutrients in the culture medium, the vegetative mycelia differentiate to aerial mycelia and spores. It has been considered that shiftdown of essential nutrients for mycelia growth is the most important factor triggering morphological and physiological differentiation in Streptomyces spp. Since proteineous macromolecule compounds are the major cellular components, these are faced to endogenously metabolize following a severe depletion of nitrogen source in culture nutrients (Fig. 1). Various proteases were identified of which production was specifically related with the phase of mycelium growth and also morphological differentiation. The involvement of proteases and protease inhibitor is reviewed as a factor explaining the mycelium differentiation in Streptomyces spp.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
• /
• v.43 no.1 s.133
• /
• pp.33-37
• /
• 2005

Eosinophil degranulation is considered to be a key effector function for the killing of helminthic worms and tissue inflammation at worm-infected lesion sites. However, relatively little data are available with regard to eosinophil response after stimulation with worm-secreted products which contain a large quantity of cysteine proteases. In this study, we attempted to determine whether the degranulation of human eosinophils could be induced by the direct stimulation of the excretory-secretory products (ESP) of Paragonimus westermani, which causes pulmonary paragonimiasis in human beings. Incubation of eosinophils for 3 hr with Paragonimus-secreted products resulted in marked degranulation, as evidenced by the release of eosinophil-derived neurotoxin (EON) in the culture supernatants. Moreover, superoxide anion was produced by eosinophils after stimulation of the ESP. The ESP-induced EDN release was found to be significantly inhibited when the ESP was pretreated with protease inhibitor cocktail or the cysteine protease inhibitor, E-64. These findings suggest that human eosinophils become degranulated in response to P. westermani-secreted proteases, which may contribute to in vivo tissue inflammation around the worms.

• Natural Product Sciences
• /
• v.9 no.2
• /
• pp.49-51
• /
• 2003

The underground part of Rosa rugosa Thunb. has been used in Korean folk medicine for treating diabetes. The $^{1}H-NMR$ signal of procyanidin B3 isolated from Rosa rugosa was fully assigned by utilizing $^{1}H-^{1}H$ COSY. Procyandin B3 showed a moderate inhibitory activity against HIV-1 protease.

• Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
• /
• v.13 no.1
• /
• pp.84-87
• /
• 2010

A peptide that inhibits HIV-1 protease was isolated from a hydrolysate of oyster (Crassostrea gigas) proteins digested with thermolysin. The peptide was using membrane filtration, gel permeation chromatography, ion exchange chromatography, and reverse-phase high performance liquid chromatography. Amino acid sequence of the peptide was determined to be Val-Phe-Glu-Leu. Chemically synthesized Val-Phe-Glu-Leu showed an $IC_{50}$ value of 106 ${\mu}M$.

• Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering:BBE
• /
• v.9 no.5
• /
• pp.379-382
• /
• 2004

Entomopathogenic nematodes are used for insect control. Herein, an extracellular protease was partially purified from a culture supernatant of Xenorhabdus nematophilus, a symbiotic bacterium of an entomopathogenic nematode, Steinernema glaseri: using precipitation with $80\%$ v/v isopropyl alcohol followed by gel permeation chromatography with a packed Sephacryl S-300 HR media. The partially purified protease exhibited maximal activity at pH 7 in the presence of 1 mM $CaCl_2$. The protease was identified as a metallo-protease based on the inhibition of its activity by the metal chelating agent, EDTA.

• Mycobiology
• /
• v.31 no.4
• /
• pp.209-213
• /
• 2003

Aspergillus flavus K-03 isolated from poultry forming soil in Korea was studied for its ability to produce extracellular proteases on basal medium containing 2%(w/v) chicken feathers. The fungus was observed to be a potent producer of such enzymes. Keratinolytic enzyme secretion was the best at 15 days of incubation period at pH 9 and temperature $40^{\circ}C$. No relationship existed between the enzyme yield and increase of biomass. Enzyme production was suppressed by exogenous sugars in descending order arabinose>maltose>mannose>fructose. But glucose did not influence the enzyme activity. The keratinolytic enzyme released by the fungus demonstrated the ability to decompose keratin substrates as chicken feather when exogenous glucose was present. The keratinolytic activity was inhibited by $HgCl_2$ and serine-protease inhibitors such as phenymethylsulfonyl fluoride(100%), chymostain(88%), crystalline soybean trypsin inhibtor(80%), antipain(45%) and aprotinin(40%), and was not by cystein-protease and aspartyl-protease inhibitors. The enzyme activity is only partially inhibited by metallo-protease inhibitor. Thus, the enzyme secreted by A. flavus K-03 belongs to the alkaline serine-type protease.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
• /
• v.44 no.1
• /
• pp.8-17
• /
• 2011

To identify and examine the distribution of proteolytic inhibitory activity in crude extracts from fish eggs, and to determine the applicability of these protease inhibitors as anti-degradation agents in surimi-based products and fish meat, we compared the inhibitory activities of various extracts from fish eggs to those of commercial proteases, such as trypsin and papain. We used the optimal conditions for the screening of trypsin activity: 30 ug/uL of 0.1% trypsin and 0.6 mM Na-benzoyl-L-arginine-p-nitroanilide (BAPNA) with a pH of 8.0 at $40^{\circ}C$ for 60 min. The activities of papain and four commercial proteases were investigated after mixing with 100 ug/uL enzymes and 0.3% casein with a pH of 8.0 at $40^{\circ}C$ for 60 min. We performed a screening assay to detect the inhibitory activity (%) of crude extracts from eight species of fish eggs against the target proteases trypsin and papain. The assay revealed a wide distribution of trypsin and papain inhibitors in fish eggs. The specific inhibitory activities (11.6.28.6 U/mg) of crude extracts from fish eggs against trypsin and BAPNA substrate were higher than that (0.64 U/mg) of egg whites, used as a commercial inhibitor. The inhibitory activities of crude extracts from fish eggs against trypsin, and of egg whites against casein substrate (1.94.4.51 U/mg), were higher than those of papain (0.24.1.57 U/mg) and commercial protease (0.04.0.32 U/mg). The extracts from fish eggs were rich in protease inhibitors that exhibited strong inhibitory activity against trypsin, a serine protease, and papain, a cysteine protease.

• Journal of Life Science
• /
• v.17 no.7 s.87
• /
• pp.948-955
• /
• 2007

Neutrophils play a key role as a first line of defense and are known to acquire the characteristics of dendritic cells (DCs) under the appropriate conditions. The spontaneous apoptosis of neutrophils was delayed by treatment with 4-(2-aminoethyl) benzensulfonylfluoride (AEBSF), a serine protease inhibitor. AEBSF inhibited both caspase-3 and serine protease activities, whereas ZVAD-fmk, a pancaspase inhibitor, inhibited only caspase-3 activity. The life span of neutrophils was prolonged up to 5 days by AEBSF in the presence or absence of granulocyte macrophage colony stimulating factor(CM-CSF). DC surface markers, such as CD80, CD83, and MHC class ll were not expressed on neutrophils treated with AEBSF alone. CM-CSF failed to prolong the survival time of neutrophils up to3 days but increased the expression levels of DC markers on neutrophils in the presence of AEBSF. Expression levels of DC markers were the highest on neutrophils treated with CM-CSF and AEBSF for 3 days. AEBSF and CM-CSF-treated neutrophils stimulated proliferation of T cells in the presence of a superantigen, Staphylococcal enterotoxin B (SEB) but produced $interferon-{\gamma}$ ($IFN{\gamma}$) in the absence of SEB. These results suggest that the inhibition of serine protease activity prolonged the life span of human neutrophils and combined treatment of neukophils with CM-CSF and serine protease inhibitor induced differentiation of neutrophils into DC-like cells.

• Journal of Microbiology
• /
• v.45 no.5
• /
• pp.402-408
• /
• 2007

A strain producing a potent protease was isolated from turban shell. The strain was identified as Bacillus sp. S17110 based on phylogenetic analysis. The enzyme was purified from culture supernatant of Bacillus sp. S17110 to homogeneity by ammonium sulfate precipitation, SP-Sepharose, and DEAE-Sepharose anion exchange chromatography. Protease activity of the purified protein against casein was found to be stable at pH 7 to pH 10 and around $50^{\circ}C$. Approximately 70% of proteolytic activity of the enzyme was detected either in the presence of 100 mM SDS or Tween 20. The enzyme activity was enhanced in the presence of $Ca^{2+},\;Zn^{2+},\;Mg^{2+}$, but was inhibited by EDTA, indicating that it requires metal for its activity. The purified enzyme was found to be a monomeric protein with a molecular mass of 75 kDa, as estimated by sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) and gel filtration chromatography. The purified enzyme was analyzed through peptide fingerprint mass spectra generated from matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time-of-flight-mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS) and a BLAST search, and identified as immune inhibitor A (inhA) deduced from nucleotide sequence of B. cereus G9241. Since InhA was identified as protease that cleave antibacterial proteins found in insect, inhA-like protease purified from Bacillus sp. S17110 might be pathogenic to sea invertebrates.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
• /
• v.18 no.1
• /
• pp.56-60
• /
• 1990

A bacterial strain of Brevibacterium sp. CHI was isolated from soil and used to produce an enzyme (nitrile hydratase) necessary for carrying out the bioconversion of acrylonitrile to acrylamide. Various immobilization methods and enzyme stability were investigated. The nitrile hydratase showed the maximum stability at pH 7 for the free cells. EDTA and phenyl methyl sulfonyl fluoride were selected as the protease inhibitor and the enzyme stability was evaluated by changing inhibitor concentration. Acrylamide beads were the best carriers among four carriers we tested in terms of stability and physicoehemical strength. The storage stability of the immobilized cells decreased with increasing acrylamide concentration of the gel phase at 4$^{\circ}C$, and was very low at acrylarnide concentration above 25%.