scholarly journals Characterization of Leader Processing Shows That Partially Processed Mersacidin Is Activated by AprE After Export

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jakob H. Viel ◽  
Amanda Y. van Tilburg ◽  
Oscar P. Kuipers

The ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptide mersacidin is a class II lanthipeptide with good activity against Gram-positive bacteria. The intramolecular lanthionine rings, that give mersacidin its stability and antimicrobial activity, are specific structures with potential applications in synthetic biology. To add the mersacidin modification enzymes to the synthetic biology toolbox, a heterologous expression system for mersacidin in Escherichia coli has recently been developed. While this system was able to produce fully modified mersacidin precursor peptide that could be activated by Bacillus amyloliquefaciens supernatant and showed that mersacidin was activated in an additional proteolytic step after transportation out of the cell, it lacked a mechanism for clean and straightforward leader processing. Here, the protease responsible for activating mersacidin was identified and heterologously produced in E. coli, improving the previously reported heterologous expression system. By screening multiple proteases, the stringency of proteolytic activity directly next to a very small lanthionine ring is demonstrated, and the full two-step proteolytic activation of mersacidin was elucidated. Additionally, the effect of partial leader processing on diffusion and antimicrobial activity is assessed, shedding light on the function of two-step leader processing.

2021 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Junpeng Li ◽  
Shuping Hu ◽  
Wei Jian ◽  
Chengjian Xie ◽  
Xingyong Yang

AbstractAntimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are a class of short, usually positively charged polypeptides that exist in humans, animals, and plants. Considering the increasing number of drug-resistant pathogens, the antimicrobial activity of AMPs has attracted much attention. AMPs with broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity against many gram-positive bacteria, gram-negative bacteria, and fungi are an important defensive barrier against pathogens for many organisms. With continuing research, many other physiological functions of plant AMPs have been found in addition to their antimicrobial roles, such as regulating plant growth and development and treating many diseases with high efficacy. The potential applicability of plant AMPs in agricultural production, as food additives and disease treatments, has garnered much interest. This review focuses on the types of plant AMPs, their mechanisms of action, the parameters affecting the antimicrobial activities of AMPs, and their potential applications in agricultural production, the food industry, breeding industry, and medical field.


Antibiotics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 295
Author(s):  
Sebastián Candelaria-Dueñas ◽  
Rocío Serrano-Parrales ◽  
Marisol Ávila-Romero ◽  
Samuel Meraz-Martínez ◽  
Julieta Orozco-Martínez ◽  
...  

In Tehuacán-Cuicatlán valley (Mexico), studies have been carried out on the essential oils of medicinal plants with antimicrobial activity and it was found that they present compounds in common such as: α-pinene, β-pinene, carvacrol, eugenol, limonene, myrcene, ocimene, cineole, methyl salicylate, farnesene, and thymol. The goal of this study was to assess the antimicrobial activity of essential oils’ compounds. The qualitative evaluation was carried out by the Kirby Baüer agar diffusion technique in Gram-positive bacteria (11 strains), Gram-negative bacteria (18 strains), and yeasts (8 strains). For the determination of the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC), minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC), the agar dilution method was used. All the evaluated compounds presented antimicrobial activity. The compounds eugenol and carvacrol showed the largest inhibition zones. Regarding yeasts, the compounds ocimene, cineole, and farnesene did not show any activity. The compounds eugenol, carvacrol, and thymol presented the lowest MIC; bactericidal effect was observed at MIC level for S. aureus 75MR, E. coli 128 MR, and C albicans CUSI, for different compounds, eugenol, carvacrol, and thymol. Finally, this study shows that the essential oils of plants used by the population of Tehuacán-Cuicatlán valley share compounds and some of them have antibacterial and fungicidal activity.


Archaea ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kian-Hong Ng ◽  
Vinayaka Srinivas ◽  
Ramanujam Srinivasan ◽  
Mohan Balasubramanian

Euryarchaeota and Crenarchaeota are two major phyla of archaea which use distinct molecular apparatuses for cell division. Euryarchaea make use of the tubulin-related protein FtsZ, while Crenarchaea, which appear to lack functional FtsZ, employ the Cdv (cell division) components to divide. Ammonia oxidizing archaeon (AOA)Nitrosopumilus maritimusbelongs to another archaeal phylum, the Thaumarchaeota, which has both FtsZ and Cdv genes in the genome. Here, we used a heterologous expression system to characterize FtsZ and Cdv proteins fromN. maritimusby investigating the ability of these proteins to form polymers. We show that one of the Cdv proteins inN. maritimus, the CdvB (Nmar_0816), is capable of forming stable polymers when expressed in fission yeast. TheN. maritimusCdvB is also capable of assembling into filaments in mammalian cells. However,N. maritimusFtsZ does not assemble into polymers in our system. The ability of CdvB, but not FtsZ, to polymerize is consistent with a recent finding showing that several Cdv proteins, but not FtsZ, localize to the mid-cell site in the dividingN. maritimus. Thus, we propose that it is Cdv proteins, rather than FtsZ, that function as the cell division apparatus inN. maritimus.


2013 ◽  
Vol 68 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 191-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Birkan Açıkgöz ◽  
İskender Karaltı ◽  
Melike Ersöz ◽  
Zeynep M. Coşkun ◽  
Gülşah Çobanoğlu ◽  
...  

The present study explores the antimicrobial activity and cytotoxic effects in culture assays of two fruticose soil lichens, Cladonia rangiformis Hoffm. and Cladonia convoluta (Lamkey) Cout., to contribute to possible pharmacological uses of lichens. In vitro antimicrobial activities of methanol and chloroform extracts against two Gram-negative bacteria (Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Escherichia coli), two Gram-positive bacteria (Enterococcus faecalis and Staphylococcus aureus), and the yeast Candida albicans were examined using the paper disc method and through determination of minimal inhibitory concentrations (MICs). The data showed the presence of antibiotic substances in the chloroform and the methanol extracts of the lichen species. The chloroform extracts exhibited more signifi cant antimicrobial activity than the methanol extracts. However, a higher antifungal activity was noted in the methanol extract of C. rangiformis. The maximum antimicrobial activity was recorded for the chloroform extract of C. convoluta against E. coli. The cytotoxic effects of the lichen extracts on human breast cancer MCF-7 cells were evaluated by the trypan blue assay yielding IC50 values of ca. 173 and 167 μg/ml for the extracts from C. rangiformis and C. convoluta, respectively.


2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 499-513
Author(s):  
M. Z. Alam ◽  
L. Ragionieri ◽  
M. A. S. Santos ◽  
A. Iqbal

Enzymes and other protein purification using recombinant DNA technology have become popular due to scarcity of natural protein. Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a demanding host, since it facilitates protein expression by its relative simplicity, safe organisms, inexpensive and has many properties of eukaryotic expression system. As an alternative host we express E. coli lacZ gene with GST tag in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and successfully purified from soluble extracts. The concentration of soluble GST-? galactosidase protein was approximately 0.57 mg/ml of elution buffer yielded from 50 ml yeast cell culture. The ?-galactosidase protein from insoluble extract was low due to the increasing solubility of GST tag. Keywords: ?-galactosidase; Heterologous expression; GST tag; Affinity chromatography. © 2013 JSR Publications. ISSN: 2070-0237 (Print); 2070-0245 (Online). All rights reserved. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/jsr.v5i3.13820 J. Sci. Res. 5 (3), 499-513 (2013)  


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