Title: Role of spacer length in interaction between novel gemini imidazolium surfactants and Rhizopus oryzae lipase Adak S, Datta S, Bhattacharya S, Banerjee R Ref: Int J Biol Macromol, 81:560, 2015 : PubMed
An insight into the effects of new ionic liquid-type gemini imidazolium cationic surfactants on the structure and function of the lipases is of prime importance for their potential application. Changes in the activity, stability and structure of Rhizopus oryzae lipase in the presence of novel gemini surfactants, [C16-3-C16im]Br2 and [C16-12-C16im]Br2 were probed in the present study. Surfactant with shorter spacer length, [C16-3-C16im]Br2 was found to be better in improving the hydrolytic activity and thermal stability of the lipase. For both the surfactants, activation was concentration dependent. CD spectroscopy results showed a decrease in alpha-helix and an increase in beta-sheet content in the presence of these surfactants. A higher structural change observed in presence of [C16-12-C16im]Br2 correlated with lower enzyme activity. Isothermal titration calorimetric studies showed the binding to be spontaneous in nature based on sequential two site binding model. The forces involved in binding were found to differ for the two surfactants proving that the spacer length is an important factor which governs the interaction. These surfactants could be used as promising components both in enzyme modification and media engineering for attaining the desired goals in biocatalytic reactions.
Zebrafish have become a popular organism for the study of vertebrate gene function. The virtually transparent embryos of this species, and the ability to accelerate genetic studies by gene knockdown or overexpression, have led to the widespread use of zebrafish in the detailed investigation of vertebrate gene function and increasingly, the study of human genetic disease. However, for effective modelling of human genetic disease it is important to understand the extent to which zebrafish genes and gene structures are related to orthologous human genes. To examine this, we generated a high-quality sequence assembly of the zebrafish genome, made up of an overlapping set of completely sequenced large-insert clones that were ordered and oriented using a high-resolution high-density meiotic map. Detailed automatic and manual annotation provides evidence of more than 26,000 protein-coding genes, the largest gene set of any vertebrate so far sequenced. Comparison to the human reference genome shows that approximately 70% of human genes have at least one obvious zebrafish orthologue. In addition, the high quality of this genome assembly provides a clearer understanding of key genomic features such as a unique repeat content, a scarcity of pseudogenes, an enrichment of zebrafish-specific genes on chromosome 4 and chromosomal regions that influence sex determination.
        
Title: Evaluation of lipase production by genetic algorithm and particle swarm optimization and their comparative study Garlapati VK, Vundavilli PR, Banerjee R Ref: Appl Biochem Biotechnol, 162:1350, 2010 : PubMed
This paper presents the nature-inspired genetic algorithm (GA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) approaches for optimization of fermentation conditions of lipase production for enhanced lipase activity. The central composite non-linear regression model of lipase production served as the optimization problem for PSO and GA approaches. The overall optimized fermentation conditions obtained thereby, when verified experimentally, have brought about a significant improvement (more than 15 U/gds (gram dry substrate)) in the lipase titer value. The performance of both optimization approaches in terms of computational time and convergence rate has been compared. The results show that the PSO approach (96.18 U/gds in 46 generations) has slightly better performance and possesses better convergence and computational efficiency than the GA approach (95.34 U/gds in 337 generations). Hence, the proposed PSO approach with the minimal parameter tuning is a viable tool for optimization of fermentation conditions of enzyme production.
The ability of G protein-coupled receptors to regulate osmosensitive uptake of the organic osmolyte, taurine, into human SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cells has been examined. When monitored under isotonic conditions and in the presence of physiologically relevant taurine concentrations (1-100 microM), taurine influx was mediated exclusively by a Na(+)-dependent, high-affinity (K(m) = 2.5 microM) saturable transport mechanism (V(max) = 0.087 nmol/mg protein/min). Reductions in osmolarity of > 20% (attained under conditions of a constant NaCl concentration) resulted in an inhibition of taurine influx (> 30%) that could be attributed to a reduction in V(max), whereas the K(m) for uptake remained unchanged. Inclusion of the muscarinic cholinergic agonist, oxotremorine-M (Oxo-M), also resulted in an attenuation of taurine influx (EC(50) approximately 0.7 microM). Although Oxo-M-mediated inhibition of taurine uptake could be observed under isotonic conditions (approximately 25-30%), the magnitude of inhibition was significantly enhanced by hypotonicity (approximately 55-60%), a result that also reflected a reduction in the V(max), but not the K(m), for taurine transport. Oxo-M-mediated inhibition of taurine uptake was dependent upon the availability of extracellular Ca(2+) but was independent of protein kinase C activity. In addition to Oxo-M, inclusion of either thrombin or sphingosine 1-phosphate also attenuated volume-dependent taurine uptake. The ability of Oxo-M to inhibit the influx of taurine was attenuated by 4-[(2-butyl-6,7-dichloro-2-cyclopentyl-2,3-dihydro-1-oxo-1H-inden-5-yl)oxy]butano ic acid, an inhibitor of the volume-sensitive organic osmolyte and anion channel. 4-[(2-Butyl-6,7-dichloro-2-cyclopentyl-2,3-dihydro-1-oxo-1H-inden-5-yl)oxy]butano ic acid also prevented receptor-mediated changes in the efflux and influx of K(+) under hypoosmotic conditions. The results suggest that muscarinic receptor activation can regulate both the volume-dependent efflux and uptake of taurine and that these events may be functionally coupled.
BACKGROUND: Transesterification of Jatropha oil was carried out in t-butanol solvent using immobilized lipase from Enterobacter aerogenes. The presence of t-butanol significantly reduced the negative effects caused by both methanol and glycerol. The effects of various reaction parameters on transesterification of Jatropha oil were studied. RESULTS: The maximum yield of biodiesel was 94% (of which 68% conversion was achieved with respect to methyl oleate) with an oil:methanol molar ratio of 1:4, 50 U of immobilized lipase/g of oil, and a t-butanol:oil volume ratio of 0.8:1 at 55 degrees C after 48 h of reaction time. There was negligible loss in lipase activity even after repeated use for seven cycles. CONCLUSION: To the best of our knowledge this is the first report on biodiesel synthesis using immobilized E. aerogenes lipase.
        
Title: Comparative study of thermostability and ester synthesis ability of free and immobilized lipases on cross linked silica gel Kumari A, Mahapatra P, Kumar GV, Banerjee R Ref: Bioprocess Biosyst Eng, 31:291, 2008 : PubMed
A novel support has been utilized for immobilization of lipase, which was prepared by amination of silica with ethanolamine followed by cross linking with glutaraldehyde. Lipases from Rhizopus oryzae 3562 and Enterobacter aerogenes were immobilized on activated silica gel, where they retained 60 and 50% of respective original activity. The thermal stability of the immobilized lipases was significantly improved in comparison to the free forms while the pH stability remained unchanged. E. aerogenes and R. oryzae 3562 lipases retained 75 and 97% of respective initial activity on incubation at 90 degrees C, whereas both the free forms became inactive at this temperature. The conversion yield of isoamyl acetate was found to be higher with the immobilized fungal (90 vs. 21%) and bacterial lipases (64 vs. 18%) than the respective free forms. Immobilized R. oryzae 3562 lipases retained 50% activity for isoamyl acetate synthesis up to ten cycles whereas it was eight cycles for E. aerogenes.
The reference sequence for each human chromosome provides the framework for understanding genome function, variation and evolution. Here we report the finished sequence and biological annotation of human chromosome 1. Chromosome 1 is gene-dense, with 3,141 genes and 991 pseudogenes, and many coding sequences overlap. Rearrangements and mutations of chromosome 1 are prevalent in cancer and many other diseases. Patterns of sequence variation reveal signals of recent selection in specific genes that may contribute to human fitness, and also in regions where no function is evident. Fine-scale recombination occurs in hotspots of varying intensity along the sequence, and is enriched near genes. These and other studies of human biology and disease encoded within chromosome 1 are made possible with the highly accurate annotated sequence, as part of the completed set of chromosome sequences that comprise the reference human genome.
The human X chromosome has a unique biology that was shaped by its evolution as the sex chromosome shared by males and females. We have determined 99.3% of the euchromatic sequence of the X chromosome. Our analysis illustrates the autosomal origin of the mammalian sex chromosomes, the stepwise process that led to the progressive loss of recombination between X and Y, and the extent of subsequent degradation of the Y chromosome. LINE1 repeat elements cover one-third of the X chromosome, with a distribution that is consistent with their proposed role as way stations in the process of X-chromosome inactivation. We found 1,098 genes in the sequence, of which 99 encode proteins expressed in testis and in various tumour types. A disproportionately high number of mendelian diseases are documented for the X chromosome. Of this number, 168 have been explained by mutations in 113 X-linked genes, which in many cases were characterized with the aid of the DNA sequence.
The finished sequence of human chromosome 10 comprises a total of 131,666,441 base pairs. It represents 99.4% of the euchromatic DNA and includes one megabase of heterochromatic sequence within the pericentromeric region of the short and long arm of the chromosome. Sequence annotation revealed 1,357 genes, of which 816 are protein coding, and 430 are pseudogenes. We observed widespread occurrence of overlapping coding genes (either strand) and identified 67 antisense transcripts. Our analysis suggests that both inter- and intrachromosomal segmental duplications have impacted on the gene count on chromosome 10. Multispecies comparative analysis indicated that we can readily annotate the protein-coding genes with current resources. We estimate that over 95% of all coding exons were identified in this study. Assessment of single base changes between the human chromosome 10 and chimpanzee sequence revealed nonsense mutations in only 21 coding genes with respect to the human sequence.
Chromosome 9 is highly structurally polymorphic. It contains the largest autosomal block of heterochromatin, which is heteromorphic in 6-8% of humans, whereas pericentric inversions occur in more than 1% of the population. The finished euchromatic sequence of chromosome 9 comprises 109,044,351 base pairs and represents >99.6% of the region. Analysis of the sequence reveals many intra- and interchromosomal duplications, including segmental duplications adjacent to both the centromere and the large heterochromatic block. We have annotated 1,149 genes, including genes implicated in male-to-female sex reversal, cancer and neurodegenerative disease, and 426 pseudogenes. The chromosome contains the largest interferon gene cluster in the human genome. There is also a region of exceptionally high gene and G + C content including genes paralogous to those in the major histocompatibility complex. We have also detected recently duplicated genes that exhibit different rates of sequence divergence, presumably reflecting natural selection.
Chromosome 6 is a metacentric chromosome that constitutes about 6% of the human genome. The finished sequence comprises 166,880,988 base pairs, representing the largest chromosome sequenced so far. The entire sequence has been subjected to high-quality manual annotation, resulting in the evidence-supported identification of 1,557 genes and 633 pseudogenes. Here we report that at least 96% of the protein-coding genes have been identified, as assessed by multi-species comparative sequence analysis, and provide evidence for the presence of further, otherwise unsupported exons/genes. Among these are genes directly implicated in cancer, schizophrenia, autoimmunity and many other diseases. Chromosome 6 harbours the largest transfer RNA gene cluster in the genome; we show that this cluster co-localizes with a region of high transcriptional activity. Within the essential immune loci of the major histocompatibility complex, we find HLA-B to be the most polymorphic gene on chromosome 6 and in the human genome.