Purification and Photodynamic Bioactivity of Phycoerythrin and Phycocyanin from Porphyra yezoensis Ueda

Phycoerythrin and phycocyanin were purified from Porphyra yezoensis Ueda with their bioactivity determined in this study. Continuous precipitation with ammonium sulfate at different concentrations(10%, 20%, 40% and 50%) increased the purity(A564:A280) of phycoerythrin to 1.49, 3.92 fold of the raw extract(0.38) and the purity(A615:A280) of phycocyanin to 0.70, 3.33 fold of the raw extract(0.21). Two more times of chromatography with hydroxylapatites finally made the purity of phycoerythrin and phycocyanin reach 5.50, 14.47 fold of the raw extract, and 5.10, 24.29 fold of the raw extract, respectviely. The yield of high purity phycoerythrin and phycocyanin were 0.21% and 0.09% of dried P. yezoensis blade, respectively. The photodynamic cytotoxic experiment showed that both phycoerythrin and phycocyanin inhibited the growth of liver tumor cells significantly. It was found that 250 mg L-1 purified phycoerythrin and phycocyanin inhibited the growth of hepatocellular carcinoma cells 24 h after laser-irradiation by 80% and 59%, respectively, and 100 mg L-1 purified phycoerythrin and phycocyanin induced the apoptosis of 31.54% and 32.54% of the cells, respectively, 8 h after photodynamic therapy. Oue findings demonstrated that P. yezoensis can serve as photosensitizer(phycoerythrin and phycocyanin) producer.

Impact of otrA expression on morphological differentiation,actinorhodin production,and resistance to aminoglycosides in Streptomyces coelicolor M145

otrA resembles elongation factor G （EF-G） and is considered to be an oxytetracycline （OTC）-resistance determinant in Streptomyces rimosus. In order to determine whether otrA also conferred resistance to OTC and other aminoglycosides to Streptomyces coelicolor, the otrA gene from S. rimosus M527 was cloned under the control of the strong ermE promoter. The resulting plasmid, pIB139-otrA, was introduced into S. coeficolor M145 by intergenedc conjugation, yielding the recombinant strain S. coelicolor M145-OA. As expected S. coelicolor M145-OA exhibited higher resistance levels specifically to OTC and aminoglycosides gentamycin, hygromycin, streptomycin, and spectinomycin. However, unexpectedly, S. coelicolor M14-~OA on solid medium showed an accelerated aerial mycelia formation, a precocious sporulation, and an enhanced actinorhodin （Act） production. Upon growth in 5-L fermentor, the amount of intra- and extracellular Act production was 6-fold and 2-fold higher, respectively, than that of the original strain. Consistently, reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction （RT-PCR） analysis revealed that the transcrip- tional level of pathway-specific regulatory gene acUl-orf4 was significantly enhanced in S. coelicolor M145-OA compared with in S. coelicolor M145.