• Journal of Microbiology
• /
• 제37권3호
• /
• pp.154-158
• /
• 1999

The arginine residue at position 243 (Arg 243) of the yeast transcription factor, Gcn4p, is invariably conserved among bZIP transcription factors. Using site-directed oligonucleotide saturation mutagenesis involving two-step polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification, random mutations were successfully introduced at the codon of 243 in the basic domain of Gcn4p. This mutant library was transformed ito Gcn4p defective yeast strain and selected for the transcriptionally active colonies. All colonies which were transcriptionally active had arginines in the codon 243. In this study, the strand preference by Taq polymerase during mutagenesis was also tested. Oligonucleotides were specially designed to test whether or not the polymerase was preferred using the strand as a template. A population of randomly mutated products were cloned into an appropriate vector and characterized by DNA sequencing analysis. Saturation mutagenesis which was performed efficiently by this method revealed a strong bias in terms of strand preference of Taq polymerase by an approximate ratio of 3 to 1 in this study.

• BMB Reports
• /
• 제37권1호
• /
• pp.122-132
• /
• 2004

The rapid development and characterization of the mouse genome sequence, coupled with comparative sequence analysis of human, has been paralleled by a reinforced enthusiasm for mouse functional genomics. The way to uncover the in vivo function of genes is to analyze the phenotypes of the mutant animals. From this standpoint, the mouse is a suitable and valuable model organism in the studies of functional genomics. Therefore, there have been enormous efforts to enrich the list of the mutant mice. Such a trend emphasizes the random mutagenesis, including ENU mutagenesis and gene-trap mutagenesis, to obtain a large stock of mutant mice. However, since various mutant alleles are needed to precisely characterize the role of a gene in vivo, mutations should be designed. The simplicity and utility of transgenic technology can satisfy this demand. The combination of RNA interference with transgenic technology will provide more opportunities for researchers. Nevertheless, gene targeting can solely define the in vivo function of a gene without a doubt. Thus, transgenesis and gene targeting will be the major strategies in the field of functional genomics.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• 제16권5호
• /
• pp.795-798
• /
• 2006

The phosphoenolpyruvate-dependent carbohydrate phosphotransferase system (PTS) is responsible for the simultaneous transfer and phosphorylation of various carbon sources in Escherichia coli. The ptsG gene encoding the enzyme $IICB^{Glc}$, the membrane component of the glucose-specific PTS, is repressed by Mlc and activated by the CRP cAMP complex; various other factors, such as Fis, FruR, and ArcA, are also known to be involved in ptsG regulation. Thus, in an attempt to discover a novel gene affecting the regulation of ptsG, a mutant with a decreased ptsG transcription in the presence of glucose compared with the wild-type strain was screened using transposon random mutagenesis. The mutant was found to have a transposon insertion in yhjV, a putative gene encoding a transporter protein whose function is yet unknown.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• 제19권3호
• /
• pp.217-228
• /
• 2009

Mobile genetic segments, or transposons, are also referred to as jumping genes as they can shift from one position in the genome to another, thus inducing a chromosomal mutation. According to the target site-specificity of the transposon during a transposition event, the result is either the insertion of a gene of interest at a specific chromosomal site, or the creation of knockout mutants. The former situation includes the integration of conjugative transposons via site-specific recombination, several transposons preferring a target site of a conserved AT-rich sequence, and Tn7 being site-specifically inserted at attTn7, the downstream of the essential glmS gene. The latter situation is exploited for random mutagenesis in many prokaryotes, including IS (insertion sequence) elements, mariner, Mu, Tn3 derivatives (Tn4430 and Tn917), Tn5, modified Tn7, Tn10, Tn552, and Ty1, enabling a variety of genetic manipulations. Randomly inserted transposons have been previously employed for a variety of applications such as genetic footprinting, gene transcriptional and translational fusion, signature-tagged mutagenesis (STM), DNA or cDNA sequencing, transposon site hybridization (TraSH), and scanning linker mutagenesis (SLM). Therefore, transposon-mediated genetic engineering is a valuable discipline for the study of bacterial physiology and pathogenesis in living hosts.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• 제20권3호
• /
• pp.563-568
• /
• 2010

The Val289 residue in the $\alpha$-amylase of Bacillus amyloliquefaciens, which is equivalent to the Ala289 and Val286 residues in the $\alpha$-amylases of B. stearothermophilus and B. licheniformis, respectively, was studied by site-directed mutagenesis. This residue was substituted with 10 different amino acids by random substitution of the Val codon. In these mutant $\alpha$-amylases, Val289 was substituted with Ile, Tyr, Phe, Leu, Gly, Pro, Ser, Arg, Glu, and Asp. Compared with the wild-type $\alpha$-amylase, the mutant $\alpha$-amylase Val289Ile showed 20% more hydrolytic activity, whereas Val289Phe and Val289Leu showed 50% lesser activity. On the other hand, the mutant $\alpha$-amylases Val289Gly, Val289Tyr, Val289Ser, and Val289Pro showed less than 15% activity. The substitution of Val289 with Arg, Asp, or Glu resulted in complete loss of the $\alpha$-amylase activity. Interestingly, the mutant $\alpha$-amylase Val289Tyr had acquired a transglycosylation activity, which resulted in the change of product profile of the reaction, giving a longer oligosaccharide.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• 제22권5호
• /
• pp.607-613
• /
• 2012

Improvement of endoglucanase activity was accomplished by utilizing error-prone rolling circle amplification, supplemented with 1.7 mM $MnCl_2$. This procedure generated random mutations in the Bacillus amyloliquefaciens endoglucanase gene with a frequency of 10 mutations per kilobase. Six mutated endoglucanase genes, recovered from six colonies, possessed endoglucanase activity between 2.50- and 3.12-folds higher than wild type. We sequenced these mutants, and the different mutated sites of nucleotides were identified. The mutated endoglucanase sequences had five mutated amino acids: A15T, P24A, P26Q, G27A, and E289V. Among these five substitutions, E289V was determined to be responsible for the improved enzyme activity. This observation was confirmed with site-directed mutagenesis; the introduction of only one mutation (E289V) in the wild-type endoglucanase gene resulted in a 7.93-fold (5.55 U/mg protein) increase in its enzymatic activity compared with that (0.7 U/mg protein) of wild type.

• 한국미생물·생명공학회지
• /
• 제47권4호
• /
• pp.581-584
• /
• 2019

In this study, the carbon monoxide (CO)-fermenting acetogen, Clostridium sp. AWRP was subjected to chemical mutagenesis with N-methyl-N'-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine (NTG) to generate a CO-resistant mutant. Among the 26 colonies obtained, the highest alcohol production was observed in one isolate, named C1. Compared to the wild-type strain, the C1 strain exhibited 1.5- and 3.4-fold higher CO consumption rate and alcohol selectivity, respectively. The total CO consumption of strain C1 could be further enhanced by increasing the content of metal ions, such as nickel and iron. The highest ethanol titer (5.7 g/l) was achieved by 5-fold increase in the iron concentration.

• Journal of Microbiology
• /
• 제35권4호
• /
• pp.300-308
• /
• 1997

The catechol 2,3-dioxygenase (C23O) encoded by the Pseudomonas putida xylE gene was over-produced in Escherichia coli and purified to homogeneity. The activity of the C23O required the reduced form of the Fe(II) ion since the enzyme was highly susceptible to inactivation with hydrogen perocide but reactivated with the addition of ferrous sulfate in conjunction with ascorbic acid. The C23O activity was abolished by treatment with the chemical reagents, diethyl-pyrocarbonate (DEPC), tetranitromethane (TNM), and 1-cyclohexy1-3-(2-morpholinoethyl) car-bodiimidemetho-ρ-toluenesulfontate (CMC), which are modifying reagents of histidine, tyrosine and glutamic acid, respectively. These results suggest that histidine, tyrosine and glutamic acid residues may be good active sites for the enzyme activity. These amino acid residues are conserved residues may be good active sites for the enzyme activity. These amino acid residues are conserved residues among several extradion dioxygenases and have the chemical potential to serveas ligands for Fe(II) coordination. Analysis of random point mutants in the C23O gene derived by PCR technique revealed that the mutated positions of two mutants, T179S and S211R, were located near the conserved His165 amd Hos217 residues, respectively. This finding indicates that these two positions, along with the conserved histidine residues, are specially effective regions for the enzyme function.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• 제23권3호
• /
• pp.304-312
• /
• 2013

The thermotolerant methylotrophic yeast Hansenula polymorpha is attracting interest as a potential strain for the production of recombinant proteins and biofuels. However, only limited numbers of genome engineering tools are currently available for H. polymorpha. In the present study, we identified the HpPOL3 gene encoding the catalytic subunit of DNA polymerase ${\delta}$ of H. polymorpha and mutated the sequence encoding conserved amino acid residues that are important for its proofreading 3'${\rightarrow}$5' exonuclease activity. The resulting $HpPOL3^*$ gene encoding the error-prone proofreading-deficient DNA polymerase ${\delta}$ was cloned under a methanol oxidase promoter to construct the mutator plasmid pHIF8, which also contains additional elements for site-specific chromosomal integration, selection, and excision. In a H. polymorpha mutator strain chromosomally integrated with pHIF8, a $URA3^-$ mutant resistant to 5-fluoroorotic acid was generated at a 50-fold higher frequency than in the wild-type strain, due to the dominant negative expression of $HpPOL3^*$. Moreover, after obtaining the desired mutant, the mutator allele was readily removed from the chromosome by homologous recombination to avoid the uncontrolled accumulation of additional mutations. Our mutator system, which depends on the accumulation of random mutations that are incorporated during DNA replication, will be useful to generate strains with mutant phenotypes, especially those related to unknown or multiple genes on the chromosome.

• Mycobiology
• /
• 제45권2호
• /
• pp.101-104
• /
• 2017

We identified two genes related to fungicide resistance in Fusarium fujikuroi through random mutagenesis. Targeted gene deletions showed that survival factor 1 deletion resulted in higher sensitivity to fungicides, while deletion of the gene encoding F-box/WD-repeat protein increased resistance, suggesting that the genes affect fungicide resistance in different ways.