Molecular and biochemical characterization of a novel intracellular invertase from Aspergillus niger with transfructosylating activity

A novel subfamily of putative intracellular invertase enzymes (glycoside hydrolase family 32) has previously been identified in fungal genomes. Here, we report phylogenetic, molecular, and biochemical characteristics of SucB, one of two novel intracellular invertases identified in Aspergillus niger. The sucB gene was expressed in Escherichia...

Safety evaluation of chemical mixtures and combinations of chemical and non-chemical stressors

Recent developments in hazard identification and risk assessment of chemical mixtures are reviewed. Empirical, descriptive approaches to study and characterize the toxicity of mixtures have dominated during the past two decades, but an increasing number of mechanistic approaches have made their entry into mixture toxicology. A series of...

Molecular cloning and characterization of the alkaline ceramidase from Pseudomonas aeruginosa PA01

Ceramidase (CDase) hydrolyzes the amide bond in ceramides to yield free fatty acid and sphingosine. From a 3-L Pseudomonas aeruginosa PA01 culture, 70 μg of extracellular alkaline, Ca2+-dependent CDase, was purified to homogeneity, the N-terminal sequence was determined, and the CDase gene was cloned. The CDase gene encodes a 670 amino acid...

The most abundant protease inhibitor in potato tuber (cv. Elkana) is a serine protease inhibitor from the Kunitz family

The gene of the most abundant protease inhibitor in potato cv. Elkana was isolated and sequenced. The deduced amino acid sequence of this gene showed 98% identity with potato serine protease inhibitor (PSPI), a member of the Kunitz family. Therefore, the most abundant protease inhibitor was considered to be one of the isoforms of PSPI. The PSPI...

The S-layer protein of Lactobacillus acidophilus ATCC 4356: Identification and characterisation of domains responsible for S-protein assembly and cell wall binding

Lactobacillus acidophilus, like many other bacteria, harbors a surface layer consisting of a protein (SA-protein) of 43 kDa. SA-protein could be readily extracted and crystallized in vitro into large crystalline patches on lipid monolayers with a net negative charge but not on lipids with a net neutral charge. Reconstruction of the S-layer from...