One of the primary limiting factors for biological activities in desert ecosystems is nitrogen (N). This study therefore examined the effects of N and investigated the responses of an arid ecosystem to global change. We selected the typical desert plant Populus euphratica in a desert ecosystem in the Ebinur Lake area to evaluate the effects of N deposition on desert soil respiration. Three leve...

As one of the most important biological factors that maintain the stability of the largest fixed and semi-fixed desert in China, the Gurbantunggut Desert, the biological soil crusts (BSCs) develop well and play critical ecological roles in the desert ecosystem. In this paper, we briefly summarize our research findings since 2002 including species composition, distribution pattern and ecological...

BACKGROUND Fungal amylase, mainly constitute of fungal α-amylase and glucoamylase, are utilized in a broad range of industries, such as starch hydrolysis, food and brewing. Although various amylases have been found in fungi, the amylases from Aspergillus dominate the commercial application. One of main problems exist with regard to these commercial use of amylases is relatively low thermal and ...

By using a gene library of Bacillus caldolyticus constructed in phage lambda EMBL12 and selecting for proteolytically active phages on plates supplemented with 0.8% skim milk, chromosomal B. caldolyticus DNA fragments that specified proteolytic activity were obtained. Subcloning of one of these fragments in a protease-deficient Bacillus subtilis strain resulted in protease proficiency of the ho...

The gene encoding the beta-amylase of Bacillus cereus BQ10-S1 (SpoII) was cloned into Escherichia coli JM 109. A sequenced DNA fragment of 2,001 bp contains the beta-amylase gene. The N-terminal sequences (AVNGKG MNPDYKAYLMAPLKKI), the C-terminal sequences (SHTSSW), and the amino acid sequences of the five regions in the beta-amylase molecules were determined. The mature beta-amylase contains 5...

The sugar-flotation-sieving (SFS) and Baermann-funnel (BF) methods were compared for nematode extraction efficiency. The SFS method recovered nematodes from more trophic groups whereas greater total numbers of individuals were recovered by BF. In a test to validate the efficiency of SFS, virtually 100% of the nematodes added to desert soil prior to extraction were recovered by four consecutive ...

alpha-Cyclodextrin specifically inhibited raw starch digestion by Bacillus subtilis 65 alpha-amylase. The raw starch digestibility and alpha-cyclodextrin-Sepharose 6B adsorbability of this alpha-amylase were simultaneously lost when the specific domain corresponding to the affinity site essential for raw starch digestion was deleted by proteolysis. Occurrence of the affinity site on raw-starch-...