• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.242-246
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• 1997

The protein profile of Synechococcus sp. cyanophage was investigated employing SDS-PAGE. The phage appears to be composed of two major proteins of 97 and 52 kDa and at least seven minor proteins of 70, 65, 60, 40, 35, 28, and 6 kDa. It seems that each subunit is combined to form a multimer although any disulfide bond does not exist in the phage structure. Lytic activity of the phage particle against cell wall was detected around the 52 kDa on renaturing SDS-PAGE using heat-killed Micrococcus luteus cells as substrate. The activity has the optimal pH between 9 and 10, and slightly inhibited by EDTA.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.15-21
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• 1997

We studied the characteristics of extracellular autolysins from Moraxella sp. CK-1 which has been known to lyse the cyanobacterial cell walls. This bacterium excreted autolysins from the early exponential growth phase. These enzymes showed optimal action condition of 60-$70^{\circ}C$ and pH 9.0. Whereas $Na^{+}$, $K^{+}$ and $Li^{+}$ ions exhibited positive effect on the enzyme activity, $Ba^{2+}$, $Mg^{2+}$, $Ca^{2+}$ and $Mn^{2+}$ ions exhibited negative effect. Especially, $Fe^{2+}$ and $Cu^{2+}$ ions almost completely suppressed the activity. Four extracellular autolysins of 30, 32, 38 and 41 kDa were detected in renaturing SOS-PAGE gel containing 0.2% heat-killed Micrococcus luteus cells as substrate. Among these 4 autolysins, 2 enzymes of 32 and 41 kDa distributed in the culture medium throughout the experimental time, but the 38 kOa enzyme diminished and 30 kOa began to appear at mid-exponential growth phase. When SOS-insoluble peptidoglycan of M. luteus was treated with the autolysins of Moraxella sp. CK-l, the concentration of free amino groups in reaction mixture increased. This indicates that the autolysins are N-acetylmuramyl-L-alanine amidase or endopeptidase.