Isolation of Secondary Metabolites with Antimicrobial Activities from Bacillus amyloliquefaciens LWYZ003

The strain LWYZ003, which can restrain multiple pathogens, was screened from the sediment of the ocean and identified as Bacillus amyloliquefaciens. Large-scale fermentation and modern chromatographic separation technologies(macroporous resin column chromatography, silica gel column chromatography, thin-layer chromatography and high-performance liquid chromatography) were used to separate antimicrobial products from the fermentation broth of marine-derived Bacillus amyloliquefaciens LWYZ003. Bioactive-guided separation was used in the term of seeking antimicrobial products from the secondary metabolites of Bacillus amyloliquefaciens LWYZ003. As a result, two natural products cycloheximide( 1) and trehalose( 2) were obtained. Their structures were elucidated by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, high-resolution mass spectrometry, ~1 H and ^(13) C nuclear magnetic resonance analysis. In the cylinder plate method, compound 1 exhibited stronger antimicrobial activities than compound 2 against Micrococcus luteus, and also exhibited wider antimicrobial spectrum than compound 2. In conclusion, isolation of bioactive secondary metabolites from marine Bacillus sp. has enormous potentials in finding suitable antibiotics to inhibit multiple pathogens.

The Combinatorial Biosynthesis of＂Unnatural＂ Products with Polyketides

Polyketides have been widely used clinically due to their significant biological activities, but the needed structural and functional diversity cannot be achieved by common chemical synthetic methods. The tool of combinatorial biosynthesis provides the possibility to produce "unnatural" natural drugs, which has achieved initial success. This paper provides an overview for the strategies of combinatorial biosynthesis in producing the structural and functional diversity of polyketides, including the redesign of metabolic flow, polyketide synthase(PKS) engineering, and PKS post-translational modification. Although encouraging progress has been made in the last decade, challenges still exist regarding the rational combinatorial biosynthesis of polyketides. In this review, the perspectives of polyketide combinatorial biosynthesis are also discussed.

Distribution of Bacterial Communities in Petroleum-Contaminated Soils from the Dagang Oilfield, China

Diversity in bacterial communities was investigated along a petroleum hydrocarbon content gradient(0-0.4043 g/g)in surface(5-10 cm)and subsurface(35-40 cm)petroleum-contaminated soil samples from the Dagang Oilfield,China.Using 16S rRNA Illumina high-throughput sequencing technology and several statistical methods,the bacterial diversity of the soil was studied.Subsequently,the environmental parameters were measured to analyze its relationship with the community variation.Nonmetric multidimensional scaling and analysis of similarities indicated a significant difference in the structure of the bacterial community between the nonpetroleum-contaminated surface and subsurface soils,but no differences were observed in different depths of petroleum-contaminated soil.Meanwhile,many significant correlations were obtained between diversity in soil bacterial community and physicochemical properties.Total petroleum hydrocarbon,total organic carbon,and total nitrogen were the three important factors that had the greatest impacts on the bacterial community distribution in the long-term petroleum-contaminated soils.Our research has provided references for the bacterial community distribution along a petroleum gradient in both surface and subsurface petroleum-contaminated soils of oilfield areas.

Selection of Reference Genes in Saccharopolyspora Spinosa for Real-Time PCR

Reverse transcription quantitative PCR(RT-q PCR)combined with the published genome information of Saccharopolyspora spinosa can allow sophisticated studies about S. spinosa, including studying the regulation of spinosyn biosynthesis, finding new target genes for engineering, and discovering and exploiting other macrolide secondary metabolites. Studies have demonstrated that appropriate internal control is needed to normalize target genes at transcription levels. However, many studies have shown that no single reference gene is universal for all strains under all experimental conditions. Thus, eight candidate reference genes of three different S. spinosa strains in two different cultures were studied to find suitable reference gene(s). The number of amplification cycles of these candidate genes was calculated by Best Keeper, Norm Finder and ge Norm. The results indicated that the most suitable reference genes for normalization during the fermentation of S. spinosa were 16 S r RNA and rb L13.

Research of 1,3-Dihydroxyacetone Production by Overexpressing Glycerol Transporter and Glycerol Dehydrogenase

1,3-Dihydroxyacetone (DHA), a natural ketose, is widely used in the chemical, cosmetic, and pharmaceutical industries. The current method for DHA production is Gluconobacter oxydans ( G. oxydans ) fermentation, but the high concentration of glycerol in the fermentation broth inhibits cells growth. To overcome this obstacle, in this study, we overexpressed the glycerol transporter (GlpFp) by the use of promoters P tufB , P gmr , P glp1 , and P glp2 in G. oxydans 621H. The results show that the glycerol tolerances of strains overexpressing G lpF were all much better than that of the control strain. The glycerol dehydrogenase gene (G dh) was overexpressed by the promoters P tufB and P gdh , which increased the DHA titer by 12.7% compared with that of the control group. When G lpF and Gdh genes were co-overexpressed in G. oxydans 621H, the OD600 value of the engineered strains all increased, but the DHA titers decreased in di erent degrees, as compared with strains that overexpressed only G dh . This study provides a reference for future research on DHA production.

Molecular Simulation and Catalytic Active Sites Identification of Dammarenediol-Ⅱ Synthase

Squalene and oxidosqualene cyclizations are regarded as the most complex chemical reactions in the nature,which can achieve protonation,deprotonation,a sequence of hydride and methyl migration. Dammarenediol-Ⅱ synthase（ DS）,as a kind of 2,3-oxidosqualene-triterpene cyclase,catalyses2,3-oxidosqualene to form dammarenediol-Ⅱ. To assess the three-dimensional（ 3 D） structure and catalytic active sites of dammarenediol-Ⅱ synthase,utilizing the homology modeling method,3 D models of DS were established in the Modeller9 v14 software and I-TASSER server. With the highest sequence identity with DS,human oxidosqualene cyclase 3 D models（ PDB： 1 W6K and 1 W6J） were chosen as templates. Through further evaluation and optimization,an optimal DS model was obtained consequently. Then several putative catalytic active sites were found through the molecular docking simulation between DS model and product dammarenediol-Ⅱ by using Autodock 4. 2. Finally,site-directed mutants of DS were expressed in Saccharomyces cerevisiae,a significant decrease of the yield of dammarenediol-Ⅱ is achieved,which verified the significance of these putative active sites.

Fed-Batch Fermentation for Spinosad Production in an Improved Reactor

As a kind of aerobic bacteria, Saccharopolyspora spinosa exhibits a high demand for oxygen. In the fermentation process, the methods of increasing ventilation and improving agitation speed are usually adopted to achieve higher values of dissolved oxygen. These methods decrease the efficiency of spinosad biosynthesis.In this study, an improved reactor was designed to solve these problems. The exhaust gas reflux device, impellers,and baffles were improved. Furthermore, we established the kinetic models for the cell growth, substrate consumption and spinosad generation in batch fermentation process. The simulation results were in good agreement with the experimental data. Spinosad production reached 583.86 mg/L after employing the suitable feeding strategy by fed-batch fermentation in the improved reactor, whereas it was only 157.01 mg/L before optimization. The method described can provide insight to strengthen spinosad production and can be extended to the culturing process of filamentous aerobic bacteria.

Engineering Corynebacterium glutamicum for Geraniol Production

Geraniol is a monoterpenoid alcohol with various applications in food,cosmetics,and healthcare.Corynebacterium glutamicum is a potential platform for terpenoids production because it harbors the methylerythritol phosphate pathway.To engineer C.glutamicum to produce geraniol,two different truncated geraniol synthases (GESs) were respectively expressed,and strain LX02 expressing the truncated GESs from Valeriana officinalis (t Vo GES) produced 0.3 mg/L of geraniol.Then,three geranyl diphosphate synthases (GPPSs) were combinatorially co-expressed with t Vo GES to improve geraniol production.The amounts of produced geraniol were all higher than that produced by strain LX02.Strain LX03 co-expressing ERG20 F96W–N127W (ERG20 WW) and t Vo GES produced the highest amount,5.4 mg/L.Subsequently,the co-overexpression of1-deoxy-D-xylulose-5-phosphate synthase (dxs) and isopentenyl diphosphate isomerase (idi) further increased the production to 12.2 mg/L in strain LX03.Lastly,the production of geraniol was increased to 15.2 mg/L via fermentation optimization.To our knowledge,this is the first report on the engineering of C.glutamicum to produce geraniol and thus can serve as a reference for other monoterpenoid production studies.

DsbA-DsbAmut fusion chaperon improved soluble expression of human trypsinogen-1 in Escherichia coli

A co-expressing system ofDsbA-DsbAmut was suggested for the first time to enhance the soluble expression of human trypsin-1. As a control, leaderless DsbA chaperone was also co-expressed with human trypsin-1. Vectors pET39b-trypsin and pET28a-DsbA- DsbAn^ut-trypsin with the above two DsbA fusion tag were constructed. The strain with vector pET39b-trypsin expressed fusion protein DsbA-trypsin in form of inclusion bodies. While in E. coli BL21 （DE3） strain with vector pET28a-DsbA-DsbAmUt-trypsin, the soluble expression of trypsin fusion protein was achieved. Under the optimized expression conditions, the soluble fraction accounted for about 49.43% of total DsbA-DsbAmUt-trypsin proteins in crude supernatant. The purification yield was 4.15% by nickel chelating chromatography and 3.3 mg activated trypsin with a purity of 88.68% was obtained from 1 L LB broth. To detect the possible functions of DsbA series chaperons in trypsin fusion protein, we analyzed the primary three-dimensional structure of fusion proteins, mainly focusing on the compatibleness between trypsin and fusion chaperons. The results suggested that （1） besides the primary function in periplasm, leaderless DsbA or DsbAmut may also act as a signal sequences-like leader targeted to periplasm that partly relieved the pressure from fusion protein overexpression and inclusion body formation, and （2） as there was significant soluble expression of DsbA-DsbAmUt-trypsin compared with DsbA-trypsin, DsbArout may function as charge or hydrophobic balance in recombinant protein DsbA-DsbAmut- trypsin.