Soo Bok Lee

Substrate specificity and transglycosylation catalyzed by a thermostable β-glucosidase from marine hyperthermophile Thermotoga neapolitana

The gene encoding β-glucosidase of the marine hyperthermophilic eubacterium Thermotoga neapolitana (bglA) was subcloned and expressed in Escherichia coli. The recombinant BglA (rBglA) was efficiently purified by heat treatment at 75°C, and a Ni-NTA affinity chromatography and its molecular mass were determined to be 56.2xa0kDa by mass spectrometry (MS). At 100°C, the enzyme showed more than 94% of its optimal activity. The half-life of the enzyme was 3.6xa0h and 12xa0min at 100 and 105°C, respectively. rBglA was active toward artificial (p-nitrophenyl β-d-glucoside) and natural substrates (cellobiose and lactose). The enzyme also exhibited activity with positional isomers of cellobiose: sophorose, laminaribiose, and gentiobiose. Kinetic studies of the enzyme revealed that the enzyme showed biphasic behavior with p-nitrophenyl β-d-glucoside as the substrate. Whereas metal ions did not show any significant effect on its activity, dithiothreitol and β-mercaptoethanol markedly increased enzymatic activity. When arbutin and cellobiose were used as an acceptor and a donor, respectively, three distinct intermolecular transfer products were found by thin-layer chromatography and recycling preparative high-performance liquid chromatography. Structural analysis of three arbutin transfer products by MS and nuclear magnetic resonance indicated that glucose from cellobiose was transferred to the C-3, C-4, and C-6 in the glucose unit of acceptor, respectively.

Requirement for Ras/Raf/ERK pathway in naringin-induced G1-cell-cycle arrest via p21WAF1 expression.

Naringin, an active flavonoid found in citrus fruit extracts, has pharmacological utility. The present study identified a novel mechanism of the anticancer effects of naringin in urinary bladder cancer cells. Naringin treatment resulted in significant dose-dependent growth inhibition together with G(1)-phase cell-cycle arrest at a dose of 100 microM (the half maximal inhibitory concentration) in 5637 cells. In addition, naringin treatment strongly induced p21WAF1 expression, independent of the p53 pathway, and downregulated expression of cyclins and cyclin dependent kinases (CDKs). Moreover, treatment with naringin induced phosphorylation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK), p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase and c-Jun N-terminal kinase. Among the pathways examined, only PD98059, an ERK-specific inhibitor, blocked naringin-dependent p21WAF1 expression. Consistently, blockade of ERK function reversed naringin-mediated inhibition of cell proliferation and decreased cell-cycle proteins. Furthermore, naringin treatment increased both Ras and Raf activation. Transfection of cells with dominant-negative Ras (RasN17) and Raf (RafS621A) mutant genes suppressed naringin-induced ERK activity and p21WAF1 expression. Finally, the naringin-induced reduction in cell proliferation and cell-cycle proteins also was abolished in the presence of RasN17 and RafS621A mutant genes. These data demonstrate that the Ras/Raf/ERK pathway participates in p21WAF1 induction, subsequently leading to a decrease in the levels of cyclin D1/CDK4 and cyclin E-CDK2 complexes and naringin-dependent inhibition of cell growth. Overall, these unexpected findings concerning the molecular mechanisms of naringin in 5637 cancer cells provide a theoretical basis for the therapeutic use of flavonoids to treat malignancies.

Interleukin-20 Promotes Migration of Bladder Cancer Cells through Extracellular Signal-regulated Kinase (ERK)-mediated MMP-9 Protein Expression Leading to Nuclear Factor (NF-κB) Activation by Inducing the Up-regulation of p21WAF1 Protein Expression

Background: The role of interleukin-20 (IL-20) in tumor migration remains to be elucidated. Results: IL-20 induces cell migration via ERK1/2-mediated NF-κB/MMP-9 regulation by inducing p21WAF1 expression. Conclusion: p21WAF1 is essential for the cell migration induced by IL-20. Significance: This work provides novel insights into the molecular events of IL-20-mediated cancer cell migration indicating it is dependent on p21WAF1 expression. The role of inflammatory cytokine interleukin-20 (IL-20) has not yet been studied in cancer biology. Here, we demonstrated up-regulation of both IL-20 and IL-20R1 in muscle-invasive bladder cancer patients. The expressions of IL-20 and IL-20R1 were observed in bladder cancer 5637 and T-24 cells. We found that IL-20 significantly increased the expression of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-9 via binding activity of NF-κB and AP-1 in bladder cancer cells and stimulated the activation of ERK1/2, JNK, p38 MAPK, and JAK-STAT signaling. Among the pathways examined, only ERK1/2 inhibitor U0126 significantly inhibited IL-20-induced migration and invasion. Moreover, siRNA knockdown of IL-20R1 suppressed migration, invasion, ERK1/2 activation, and NF-κB-mediated MMP-9 expression induced by IL-20. Unexpectedly, the cell cycle inhibitor p21WAF1 was induced by IL-20 treatment without altering cell cycle progression. Blockade of p21WAF1 function by siRNA reversed migration, invasion, activation of ERK signaling, MMP-9 expression, and activation of NF-κB in IL-20-treated cells. In addition, IL-20 induced the activation of IκB kinase, the degradation and phosphorylation of IκBα, and NF-κB p65 nuclear translocation, which was regulated by ERK1/2. IL-20 stimulated the recruitment of p65 to the MMP-9 promoter region. Finally, the IL-20-induced migration and invasion of cells was confirmed by IL-20 gene transfection and by addition of anti-IL-20 antibody. This is the first report that p21WAF1 is involved in ERK1/2-mediated MMP-9 expression via increased binding activity of NF-κB, which resulted in the induction of migration in IL-20/IL-20R1 dyad-induced bladder cancer cells. These unexpected results might provide a critical new target for the treatment of bladder cancer.

Effects of pH, Temperature, and Alcohols on the Remarkable Activation of Thermolysin by Salts

The activity of thermolysin in the hydrolysis of N-[3-(2-furyl)acryloyl] (FA)-dipeptide amides and N-carbobenzoxyl-L-aspartyl-L-phenylalanine methyl ester is remarkably enhanced by high concentrations (1-5 M) of neutral salts. The activation is due to an increase in the molecular activity, k(cat), while the Michaelis constant, K(m), is not affected by the addition of NaCl. In the present study, the effect of NaCl on the thermolysin-catalyzed hydrolysis of FA-glycyl-L-leucine amide (FAGLA) has been examined by changing the pH and temperature, and by adding alcohols to the reaction mixture. The enzyme activity, expressed by k(cat)/K(m), is pH-dependent, being controlled by two functional residues with pK(a) values of 5.4 and 7.8 in the absence of NaCl. The acidic pK(a) is shifted from 5.4 to 6.7 by the addition of 4 M NaCl, while the basic one is not changed. The degree of activation at a given concentration of NaCl is pH dependent in a bell-shaped manner with the optimum pH around 7. Although the activity increases in both the presence and absence of NaCl with increasing temperature from 5 to 35 degrees C, the degree of activation decreases. Alcohols inhibit thermolysin, and the degree of activation decreases with increasing alcohol concentration. The degree of activation tends to increase with increasing dielectric constant of the medium, although it varies considerably depending on the species of alcohol. Electrostatic interactions on the surface and at the active site of thermolysin are suggested to play a significant role in the remarkable activation by salts.

Biochemical characterisation of a glycogen branching enzyme from Streptococcus mutans: Enzymatic modification of starch.

A gene encoding a putative glycogen branching enzyme (SmGBE) in Streptococcus mutans was expressed in Escherichia coli and purified. The biochemical properties of the purified enzyme were examined relative to its branching specificity for amylose and starch. The activity of the approximately 75kDa enzyme was optimal at pH 5.0, and stable up to 40°C. The enzyme predominantly transferred short maltooligosyl chains with a degree of polymerization (dp) of 6 and 7 throughout the branching process for amylose. When incubated with rice starch, the enzyme modified its optimal branch chain-length from dp 12 to 6 with large reductions in the longer chains, and simultaneously increased its branching points. The results indicate that SmGBE can make a modified starch with much shorter branches and a more branched structure than to native starch. In addition, starch retrogradation due to low temperature storage was significantly retarded along with the enzyme reaction.

Antioxidative Effects of Glycosyl-ascorbic Acids Synthesized by Maltogenic Amylase to Reduce Lipid Oxidation and Volatiles Production in Cooked Chicken Meat

Glycosylated ascorbic acids were synthesized by using the transglycosylation activity of Bacillus stearothermophilus maltogenic amylase with maltotriose to show effective antioxidative activity with enhanced oxidative stability. The modified ascorbic acids comprised mono- and di-glycosyl transfer products with an α-(1,6)-glycosidic linkage. The antioxidative effects of the glycosyl derivatives of ascorbic acid on the lipid oxidation of cooked chicken breast meat patties were compared, and the synergistic effect when combined with α-tocopherol was determined in terms of thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances (TBARS) and volatiles production during storage. The results indicate that the glycosylated ascorbic acids had very effective antioxidative activity in preventing lipid oxidation, and were better in their synergistic effect in comparison to authentic ascorbic acid, with maltosyl-ascorbic acid being the most effective. Volatiles production was highly correlated with the TBARS values in the lipid oxidation of cooked meat. The antioxidative effect preventing the production of volatiles was particularly strong on pentanal, fairly strong on propanal and butanal, and not at all on ethanal. Propanal, pentanal, and the total volatiles thus provided a good representation of the lipid oxidation status of cooked chicken meat.

Optimized combinatorial clustering for stochastic processes

As a new data processing era like Big Data, Cloud Computing, and Internet of Things approaches, the amount of data being collected in databases far exceeds the ability to reduce and analyze these data without the use of automated analysis techniques, data mining. As the importance of data mining has grown, one of the critical issues to emerge is how to scale data mining techniques to larger and complex databases so that it is particularly imperative for computationally intensive data mining tasks such as identifying natural clusters of instances. In this paper, we suggest an optimized combinatorial clustering algorithm for noisy performance which is essential for large data with random sampling. The algorithm outperforms conventional approaches through various numerical and qualitative thresholds like mean and standard deviation of accuracy and computation speed.

Characterization of UDP-glucose 4-epimerase from Pyrococcus horikoshii: regeneration of UDP to produce UDP-galactose using two-enzyme system with trehalose.

A gene encoding a putative UDP-glucose 4-epimerase (pGALE) in Pyrococcus horikoshii was cloned and expressed in Escherichia coli. The purified enzyme could reversibly catalyze both the synthesis of UDP-Gal and UDP-Glc but preferred the binding of UDP-Gal by approximately 10-fold. The optimum pH and temperature were 6.5 and 65°C. The enzyme acted effectively without the addition of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD(+)), possibly due to the presence of tightly bound NAD(+). In particular, pGALE could be coupled with trehalose synthase (TreT) from P. horikoshii to regenerate UDP-Gal from UDP. The possible byproduct of glycosyltransferase, UDP, was capable of being converted to UDP-Glc with trehalose by TreT, and UDP-Glc was simultaneously converted to UDP-Gal by pGALE. Conclusively, the results suggest that pGALE and TreT with trehalose is an effective one-pot two-enzyme system for the regeneration of UDP-Gal, a high-cost substrate of galactosyltransferase, to complete a sugar nucleotide cycle.

Enzymatic bioconversion of citrus hesperidin by Aspergillus sojae naringinase: Enhanced solubility of hesperetin-7-O-glucoside with in vitro inhibition of human intestinal maltase, HMG-CoA reductase, and growth of Helicobacter pylori

Hesperetin-7-O-glucoside (Hes-7-G) was produced by the enzymatic conversion of hesperidin by Aspergillus sojae naringinase due to the removal of the terminal rhamnose. Extracts from orange juice and peel containing the hesperidin were so treated by this enzyme that the hesperidin could also be converted to Hes-7-G. The solubility of Hes-7-G in 10% ethanol was enhanced 55- and 88-fold over those of hesperidin and hesperetin, respectively, which may make Hes-7-G more bioavailable. Hes-7-G was 1.7- and 2.4-fold better than hesperidin and hesperetin, respectively, in the inhibition of human intestinal maltase. Hes-7-G was more potent by 2- and 4-fold than hesperidin in the inhibition of human HMG-CoA reductase. Additionally, Hes-7-G exhibited more effective inhibition of the growth of Helicobacter pylori than hesperetin, while its effectiveness was similar to that of hesperidin. Therefore, the results suggest that bioconverted Hes-7-G is more effective and bioavailable than hesperidin, as it has enhanced inhibitory and solubility properties.

Structural Insights on the New Mechanism of Trehalose Synthesis by Trehalose Synthase Tret from Pyrococcus Horikoshii.

Many microorganisms produce trehalose for stability and survival against various environmental stresses. Unlike the widely distributed trehalose-biosynthetic pathway, which utilizes uridine diphosphate glucose and glucose-6-phosphate, the newly identified enzyme trehalose glycosyltransferring synthase (TreT) from hyperthermophilic bacteria and archaea synthesizes an α,α-trehalose from nucleoside diphosphate glucose and glucose. In the present study, we determined the crystal structure of TreT from Pyrococcus horikoshii at 2.3xa0Å resolution to understand the detailed mechanism of this novel trehalose synthase. The conservation of essential residues in TreT and the high overall structural similarity of the N-terminal domain to that of trehalose phosphate synthase (TPS) imply that the catalytic reaction of TreT for trehalose synthesis would follow a similar mechanism to that of TPS. The acceptor binding site of TreT shows a wide and commodious groove and lacks the long flexible loop that plays a gating role in ligand binding in TPS. The observation of a wide space at the fissure between two domains and the relative shift of the N-domain in one of the crystal forms suggest that an interactive conformational change between two domains would occur, allowing a more compact architecture for catalysis. The structural analysis and biochemical data in this study provide a molecular basis for understanding the synthetic mechanism of trehalose, or the nucleotide sugar in reverse reaction of the TreT, in extremophiles that may have important industrial implications.