Juvenile hormone is the most important hormone inside the insect, but its circulating titer should be under tight control. Then enzymes involved in JH metabolism, especially juvenile hormone esterases (JHEs) play critical roles in insect metamorphosis and reproduction. Within a set of 11 JHEs predicted in the diamondback moth (DBM) genome, Plutlla xylostella (Linn.) we identified one gene that contained the main functional motifs of insect JHEs. Its expression and transcript levels during egg, different instar of larvae, prepuae, pupae and adult stages were measured. Also, its expression in the epidermis, midgut and fatbody of the 4 th instar larvae was compared. The changes in enzyme activity in the 4th instar larvae were determined.

The antimicrobial peptide cecropin was isolated from the larval hemolymph of immune-challenged japanese oak silkworm, Antheraea yamamai. The full-length cDNA of A. yamamai cecropin (Ay-cecA) was cloned by a combination of RT-PCR and 3' RACE based on N-terminal sequence obtained by Edman degradation. The cloned cDNA consists of 419 nucleotides encoding a 64 amino acid precursor containing a 37-residue mature peptide. Like many insect cecropins, Ay-cecA also harbored a glycine residue for C-terminal amidation at the C-end. To understand this peptide better, we successfully expressed bioactive recombinant Ay-cecA in E. coli BL21(DE3) by fusing with ketosteroid isomerase (KSI) to avoid the cell death during induction. The fusion CecA-KSI protein was expressed as inclusion body at high level. Recombinant Ay-cecA was easily released by cleavage of the fusion protein with cyanogen bromide (CNBr), and purified by FPLC chromatography. The purified recombinant Ay-cecA showed considerably antibacterial activity against Gram-negative bacteria, E. coli ML 35, Klebsiella pneumonia and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The time-kill assay showed that Ay-CecA displayed a time-dependent bactericidal activity, as was also seen after treatment with melittin. our results proved that Ay-cecA can be developed into novel antibacterial agent.

Immune defense is indispensible for insect survival. However, uncontrolled and excessive immune responses would be highly detrimental and energy-consuming processes. An insect cytokine, plasmatocyte-spreading peptide (PSP), induces hemocyte-spreading behavior as well as activating phenoloxidase (PO) in the beet armyworm, Spodoptera exigua. A hemocyte transcriptome of S. exigua contains a partial sequence of a putative PSP-binding protein (SePSP-BP). SePSP-BP was expressed in all developmental stages especially in hemocytes and fat body. A quantitative RT-PCR showed that the bacterial infection significantly up-regulated the expression level of SePSP-BP. A double-stranded RNA specific to SePSP-BP (dsRNASePSP-BP) was injected and suppressed SePSP-BP expression even in response to bacterial challenge. The larvae treated with dsRNASePSP-BPsuffered high mortality to infection of nonpathogenic bacteria and prolonged high PO activity after the immune challenge. These results suggest that SePSP-BP may play a role in suppressing immune responses as a negative controller

This study was to examine expression of the recombinant full-length adiponectin (recombinant adiponectin) in insect ovarian cell culture system and to characterize structural properties of the recombinant adiponectin secreted in medium. Gene construct encoding the recombinant adiponectin contained N-terminal collagen-like domain (110 Amino Acids, AAs), C-terminal globular domain (137 AAs) and C-terminal peptides for detection with V5 antibody (26 AAs included adaptor peptide) and purification using the 6xHis tag (6 AAs). The approximate molecular weight of the product (monomer) was 35 kDa. Molecular mass species of the expressed recombinant adiponectin were monomer (～35 kDa), dimer (～70 kDa), trimer (～105 kDa) and hexamer (～210 kDa). The major secreted species were the LMW forms, such as monomer, dimer, and trimer. There was MMW of hexamer as minor form. HMW multimers (～300 kDa) were shown as a tracer or not detected on the SDS-PAGE in several experiments (data not shown). The multimer forms in this study were not compatible to those in animal or human serum and adipose tissue by other researcher’s study in which the major multimer forms were HMW. By protein denaturing experiments with reducing reagent (β- MeOH), anionic detergent (SDS) and heat (95℃) on the SDS-PAGE, not all adiponectin multimers seemed to have disulfide bond linked structure to form multimers. The recombinant adiponectin which expressed in insect ovarian cell culture system seemed to have the limitation as full physiological regulator for the application to animal and human study.

Eugenol은 많은 식물에서 eugenol synthase에 의해 생합성되는 phenylpropene 계통의 휘발성 화 합물이다. 그러나, 토마토 과실에서의 특징은 밝혀져 있지 않다. 이에 따라 토마토 ‘Micro-Tom'으로 부터 RACE 기법을 이용하여 완전장 cDNA를 클로닝 하여, SlEGS라 명명하였다. SlEGS의 open reading frame은 921bp로, 307개의 아미노산 서열을 갖는 단백질로 번역되었다. BLAST 결과에 따라 SlEGS는 PhEGS1 및 CbEGS2와 각 67.1, 69.4%의 높은 상동성을 갖는 것으로 나타났다. CLC genomics workbench 프로그램을 이용하여 SlEGS의 아미노산 구성을 분석하였고, Swiss-PDB viewer 프로그램에서 homology modeling 기법으로 SlEGS의 3차원 단백질 구조를 구축한 후 ProSA-web 툴로 3차원 구조의 안정성을 확인 하였다. 또한 ExPASy의 ProtParam 툴을 이용하여 SlEGS의 생리화학적 특성을 분석 하였다. SlEGS의 추정 분자량은 33.93kDA이고 등전점(pI)은 5.85 로 산성인 것으로 나타났다. 이와 더불어 SlEGS의 흡광 계수(EC), 불안정성 지수(II), alipathic 지수 (AI), GRAVY값 등의 생리화학적 특성에 대한 분석을 실시 하였다.

The gene encoding an esterase enzyme was cloned from a metagenomic library of cow rumen bacteria. The esterase gene (est2R) was 2,120 bp in length, encoding a protein of 516 amino acid residues with a calculated molecular weight of 57,286 Da. The molecular weight of the enzyme was estimated to be 57,000 Da by SDS-PAGE. Est2R shared 35.6% amino acid identity with esterase (CAH19079) of uncultured prokaryote. The Est2R was most active at 20-40°C, and showed optimum at 30°C and pH 8.0. The most activity of Est2R for the different chain length of p-nitrophenyl ester group as substrate was p-nitrophenyl acetate. Moreover, the enzyme was found to be most active without organic solvent, followed by 98% active with ethanol, and the enzyme activity was highly affected by the acetonitrile. The enzyme was significantly inhibited by Zn2+ but stimulated by Ca2+. So, novel esterase gene est2R is likely to obtain from cow rumen metagenome and supposed to use for industrial purpose.

Adipose tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cells (ASCs) are very interesting in several laboratory animals and humans because they are easy to harvest and expand to generate millions of cells from a small quantity of fat. ASCs are known as useful materials for clinical applications in human cell therapy and as a donor cell in somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). Here, we investigated if 1) minipig ASCs can be isolated, self-renewed and differentiated into multiple tissue lineages, 2) ASCs can be a suitable donor cell type for generation of cloned pig. In order to isolate ASC, adipose tissues were collected from inguinal region of a 6-year-old female minipig. The ASCs were attached to the culture dish with a fibroblast-like morphology. They expressed cell-surface marker characteristics of stem cell, underwent osteogenic, adipogenic, myogenic, neurogenic and chondrogenic differentiation when exposed to specific differentiation-inducing conditions. To investigate its potential as donor cell for cloning, we respectively carried out SCNT using ASC, adult skin fibroblast (ASF) and fetal fibroblast (FF) derived from same minipig. The ratio of blastocysts to 2-cell embryos and total cell number of blastocysts were monitored as experimental parameters. In results, cleavage and developmental competence to blastocysts rate showed no significant difference among the three groups. On the other hand, total cell numbers of blastocysts derived from ASC and FF were significantly higher than in ASF (89±7.9 and 105±5.5 vs. 57.5±5.2, respectively). Our results demonstrated that ASC have potential compared to ASF and FF in terms of the in vitro development and blastocyst formation ability. In further study, we will investigate the in vivo developmental ability of ASC as donor cell for pig cloning. * This study was supported by IPET (#311011-05-1-SB010), RNL Bio (#550-20120006), Institute for Veterinary Science, the BK21 program, TS Corporation and Optifarm Solution.

Spider silks hold great potential as biomaterials with extraordinary properties. Here we report cloning and characterization of the major ampullate silk protein gene from the spider Araneus ventricosus. A cDNA coding for the partial major ampullate silk protein (AvMaSp) was cloned from A. ventricosus. Analysis of the cDNA sequence shows that AvMaSp consists of 240 amino acids of a repetitive region and 99 amino acids of a C-terminal non-repetitive domain. The peptide motifs found in spider major ampullate silk proteins, (A)n, (GA)n, and (GGX)n, were conserved in the repetitive region of AvMaSp. Phylogenetic analysis further confirmed that AvMaSp belongs to the spider major ampullate spidroin proteins. The AvMaSp-R cDNA, which contains sequences encoding for 240 amino acids of a repetitive domain, was expressed as a 22 kDa polypeptide of soluble form in baculovirus-infected insect cells. Recombinant AvMaSp-R was degraded abruptly by trypsin. However, AvMaSp-R was stable at 100 °C for at least 30 min. Additionally, the AvMaSp-R was stable at various pH values from 2 to 12 for at least 1 h. Taken together, our findings provide the molecular structure and biochemical property for A. ventricosus major ampullate silk protein as a biomaterial.

A carboxymethyl cellulase gene, cel5B, was cloned, sequenced, and expressed in Escherichia coli. pRCS20 in E. coli was identified from metagenomic cosmid library of cow rumen for cellulase activity on a carboxymethyl cellulose agar plates. Cosmid clone (RCS20) was partially digested with Sau3AI, ligated into BamHI site of pBluescript II SK+ vector, and transformed into E. coli DH5α. The insert DNA of 1.3 kb was obtained, designated cel5B, which has the activity of hydrolyzation of CMC. The cel5B gene had an open reading frame (ORF) of 1,059 bp encoding 352 amino acids with a signal peptide of 48 amino acids and the conserved region, VIYEIYNEPL, belongs to the glycosyl hydrolase family 5. The molecular mass of Cel5B protein expressed from E. coli DH5α exhibited to be about 34 kDa by CMC-SDS-PAGE. The optimal pH was 8.0, and the optimal temperature was about 50℃ for its enzymatic activity.

인천 연안의 심하게 오염된 갯벌로부터 강력한 세포외 알카리성 단백질 분해효소를 생산하는 호알카리 성 Bacillus clausii I-52를 분리하였으며, 이 균주로부터 알카리성 단백질 분해효소의 유전자를 cloning 하여 서열 분석을 하였다. Chromosome 서열이 완전히 밝혀진 Bacillus subtilis의 서열을 기초로 하여 알카리성 단백질 분해효소 및 promoter를 포함하도록 primer를 고안하여 PCR을 수행하여 2,277 bp의 DNA 단편을 얻었으며 BLAST 분석 결과 29 개의 아미노산으로 이루어진 signal peptide, 77 개의 아미 노산으로 이루어진 propeptide 및 275 개의 아미노산을 갖는 활성형의 BCAP으로 구성된 총 381 개의 아미노산을 코딩하는 1,143 bp의 open reading frame을 확인하였다. 활성형 BCAP의 N-말단 아미노산은 Ala이며, 분자량 및 pI 값은 각각 27698.7 Da과 6.30으로 계산되었다. 아미노산 상동성을 분석한 결과, B. subtilis 유래의 nattokinase precursor 및 B. subtilis BSn5 유래의 subtilisin E precursor와 99%의 서열 상동성을 나타내어 B. clausii I-52 유래의 BCAP은 subtilisin 계열의 단백질 분해효소임을 확인하였다. E. coli BL21(DE3)에서 발현한 재조합 BCAP는 N-Suc-Ala-Ala-Pro-Phe-pNA 를 효율적으로 분해하였다. Refolding한 재조합 BCAP은 전형적인 serine protease inhibitor인 PMSF에 의하여 강하게 효소 활성이 억제됨으로써 serine protease 계열의 단백질 분해효소임을 알 수 있었다.

Plasmids from Bacillus thuringiensis have been implicated in pathogenicity as they carry the genes responsible for different types of diseases that in mammals and insects. A novel serogroup (H3a3b3d), B. thuringiensis strain K4 which showed mosquitocidal activity against Anopheles sinensis and Culex pipiens pallens, was isolated from fallen leaves in Mungyeong city, Republic of Korea. In contrast to the complicated plasmid profiles of B. thuringiensis H3 serotype strains, the strain K4 (designated as serovar mogi) had only one large plasmid (>200kb) on which the toxin genes were occasionally located. A 454 pyrosequencing was used for the complete sequencing of the large plasmid. The sequence analysis showed that k4 plasmid had at least seven putative cry genes, ending up to showing 84%, 75%, 73%, 58%, 84%, 39% and 75% homology with Cry27Aa, Cry19Ba, Cry20-like, Cry56Aa, Cry39ORF2, Cry8Ba and Cry40ORF2 toxins in amino acids, respectively. This novel 3a3b3d type strain, B. thuringiensis serovar mogi, can be used as a good resource for studying unknown mosquitocidal cry genes. The E. coli-B. thuringiensis shuttle vector, pHT1K was used to clone these cry genes for characterization. In each clone, the level of transcription and production of crystal proteins will be investigated in near the future.

A carbofuran-resistant strain (CAS) showed ca. 41.1- and 15.1-fold resistance compared to a susceptible strain (SUS) and a non-selected field strain (FM), respectively. Enhanced activities of carboxylesterase and P450 were found as ca. 3- and 1.6-fold higher in CAS strain, suggesting these enzymes play a minor role in carbofuran resistance. Interestingly, the insensitivity of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) to carbofuran was revealed to be ca. 5.5- and 3.7-fold higher in CAS strain compared to, indicating that AChE insensitivity mechanism is associated with carbofuran resistance. In the western blot analysis, two kinds of AChEs were found and type-1 AChE (Nlace1) was identified as the major AChE in N. lugens. The open reading frame of Nlace1 is composed of 2,106 bp (ca. 78 Kd) and revealed 52.5% and 24.3% identity compared with Nephotettix cincticeps and Drosophila melanogaster, respectively. In the screening of point mutations, four amino acid substitutions (G119A, F/S330Y, F331I and H332L) were identified in the CAS strain that likely contribute to the AChE insensitivity. The allele frequencies of these mutations increased in the survived populations following the selection by LC50 of carbofuran, confirming that they are in fact associated with reduced sensitivity to carbofuran in N. lugens. These point mutation can be useful for the monitoring of resistance levels in conjunction with QS methods.

Diapause duration of Paratlanticus ussuriensis is prolonged as an egg that enter both initial and final diapause stgaes. Environmental conditions, such as temperature, can modify the duration of initial diapause. Eggs enter initial diapause at 20℃, but continued early embryonic development at 30℃. Final diapause at a fully developed embryonic stage is obligatory regardless of temperature conditions. To determine temperature effects on initial diapause mechanism of P. ussuriensis eggs, we compared weights, DNA and RNA amounts of eggs incubated at either 20℃ or 30℃ for 50 days after oviposition. We identified small heat shock protein (shsp), heat shock protein 90 (hsp90) and three heat shock protein 70 (hsp70a, hap70b, hsp70c) genes of P. ussuriensis and determined those expression levels at different temperature conditions. The levels of shsp, hsp70a, hsp70b and hsp90 was not detectable until 20 days after oviposition at both temperature conditions, but highly increased at 50 and 60 days when incubated at 30℃. In contrast, hsp70c level was rapidly peaked at 20 days after oviposition, which is the time of initial diapause entrance. We analysis of temperature sensitivity of P. ussuriensis eggs. Hsp70a is expressed after the first cold treatment of mature eggs. Hsp70b is highly expressed just before hatching. Both shsp and hsp70c was highly expressed at the heat shock condition into immature egg stage. Our results suggest that high temperature breakdown initial diapause and one hsp gene, such as hsp70c, may be involved into the mechanism of initial diapause of P. ussuriensis eggs.

The extracellular GH11 β-1,4-xylanase (XylY) gene (633-bp) of Paenibacillus sp. strain KYJ-16 was molecularly cloned by repeated DNA walking and nested PCR method. The xylY gene was predicted to encode an extracellular protein consisting of 611 amino acids with a nesuced molecular mass of 23 kDa and a calculated pI of 9.55. Protein blast search revealed that the enzyme consisted of a putative catalytic domain, which is homologous to a catalytic GH11 domain. The highest sequence identity (92%) was obtained as the catalytic GH11 domain of XylY was compared to that of Paenibacillus sp. strain HGF5 (GenBank accession number: EGG35584) that has not yet been characterized. Enzymatic properties of the recombinant His-tagged enzyme (rXylY) overexpressed in E. coli BL21 harboring pET-28a(+)/xylY will be also presented.

The gene (2,304-bp) encoding a novel xylanolytic enzyme (XylD) with a catalytic domain, which is 70% identical to that of Cellulomonas flavigena DSM 20109 GH6 β-1,4-cellobiohydrolase, was identified from an earthworm (Eisenia fetida)-symbiotic bacterium, Cellulosimicrobium sp. strain HY-13. The enzyme consisted of an N-terminal catalytic GH6-like domain, a fibronectin type 3 (Fn3) domain, and a C-terminal carbohydrate-binding module 2 (CBM 2). XylDΔFn3-CBM 2 displayed high transferase activity (788.3 IU mg-1) toward p-nitrophenyl (PNP) cellobioside, but did not degrade xylobiose, glucose-based materials, or other PNP-sugar derivatives. Birchwood xylan was degraded by XylDΔFn3-CBM 2 to xylobiose (59.2%) and xylotriose (40.8%). The transglycosylation activity of the enzyme, which enabled the formation of xylobiose (33.6%) and xylotriose (66.4%) from the hydrolysis of xylotriose, indicates that it is not an inverting enzyme but a retaining enzyme. The endo-β-1,4-xylanase activity of XylDΔFn3-CBM 2 increased significantly by approximately 2.0-fold in the presence of 50 mM xylobiose.

In order to confirm the presence of putative glucoamylase gene in Tricholoma matsutake genome, the genomic DNA was prepared from T. matsutake NBRC30773 strain and was used as template to clone the glucoamylases gene (TmGlu1). We obtained the nucleotide sequence of TmGlu1 and its franking region. The coding region (from ATG to stop codon) is 2,186 bp. The locations of exons and introns were determined from the nucleotide sequences of 3’- and 5’-RACE PCR and RT- PCR products. On the other hand, to investigate the relationship between composition of medium and glucoamylase expression, we checked the expression level of glucoamylase gene by realtime reverse transcription PCR and measurement of glucoamylase enzyme activity. It was found that enzyme activity of glucoamylase was very low in different medium. Expression of glucoamylases gene appeared to not be affected by different carbon source.

In this study, a full-length heat shock protein88 complementary DNA (cDNA) of Paecilomyces tenuipes Jocheon-1 was obtained by screening of P. tenuipesJocheon-1 Uni-Zap cDNA library and 5' RACE polymerase chain reaction. The Paecilomyces tenuipes Jocheon-1 heat shock protein88 cDNA contains an open reading frame of 2,139 bp encoding 713 amino acid residues. The deduced amino acid sequence of the P. tenuipes Jocheon-1 HSP88 cDNA showed 77% identity to N. haematococca HSP88 and 45-76% identity to other fungi HSP88. Phylogenetic analysis and BLAST program analysis confirmed that the deduced amino acid sequences of the P. tenuipes Jocheon-1 HSP88 gene belonged to the ascomycetes group within the fungal clade and P. tenuipes Jocheon-1 HSP88 also contains the conserved ATPase domain at the N-terminal. The cDNA encoding P. tenuipes Jocheon-1 HSP88 was expressed as a 88 kDa polypeptide in baculovirus-infected insect Sf9 cells. Under different stress conditions, mRNA expression of P. tenuipes Jocheon-1 HSP88 were quantified by real-time PCR and the result showed that heat shock stress affected the mRNA expression levels of P. tenuipes Jocheon-1 HSP88.