Chitinolytic and Fungicidal Potential of the Marine Bacterial Strains Habituating Pacific Ocean Regions.

Screening for chitinolytic activity in the bacterial strains from different Pacific Ocean regions revealed that the highly active representatives belong to the genera , , , and . The widely distributed chitinolytic species was isolated from the sea urchin . Among seventeen isolates with confirmed chitinolytic activity, only the type strain KMM 3630 and the strains of putatively new species sp.

Shift of Choline/Betaine Pathway in Recombinant for Cobalamin Biosynthesis and Abiotic Stress Protection.

The B12-producing strains DSM 1650 and sp. CCUG 2519 (both formerly ), with the most distributed pathway among bacteria for exogenous choline/betaine utilization, are promising recombinant hosts for the endogenous production of B12 precursor betaine by direct methylation of bioavailable glycine or non-proteinogenic -alanine. Two plasmid-based de novo betaine pathways, distinguished by their enzymes, have provided an expression of the genes encoding for -methyltransferases of the halotolerant cyanobacterium or plant to synthesize the internal glycine betaine or -alanine betaine, respectively.

Engineered Fungus Producing Plant Storage Proteins.

An efficient -mediated genetic transformation based on the plant binary vector pPZP-RCS2 was carried out for the multiple heterologous protein production in filamentous fungus   F-859 (formerly   F-859). The engineered fungus   was able to produce plant storage proteins of   (α-zein Z19) and   (albumin A1) to enrich fungal biomass by valuable nutritional proteins and improved amino acid content. The mRNA levels of and genes were significantly dependent on their driving promoters: the promoter of tryptophan synthase (P) was more efficient to express , while the promoter of translation elongation factor (P) provided much higher levels of transcript abundance.

Effects of Sponge-Derived Alkaloids on Activities of the Bacterial α-D-Galactosidase and Human Cancer Cell α-N-Acetylgalactosaminidase.

During a search for glycosidase inhibitors among marine natural products, we applied an integrated in vitro and in silico approach to evaluate the potency of some aaptamines and makaluvamines isolated from marine sponges on the hydrolyzing activity of α-N-acetylgalactosaminidase (α-NaGalase) from human cancer cells and the recombinant α-D-galactosidase (α-PsGal) from a marine bacterium sp. KMM 701. These alkaloids showed no direct inhibitory effect on the cancer α-NaGalase; but isoaaptamine (), 9-demethylaaptamine (), damirone B (), and makaluvamine H () reduced the expression of the enzyme in the human colorectal adenocarcinoma cell line DLD-1 at 5 μM.