Background: Since alkaloids are nitrogenous compounds, the availability of nitrogen (N) is expected to play an important role in the biosynthesis and accumulation of alkaloids in plants. Nitrogen has been found to increase the content of alkaloids in some of the medicinal plants. Objective: The aim of this study was to compare the effects of nitrogen bio-fertilizers, conventional nitrogen fe...

OBJECTIVE To study the sterilizing effect and mechanism of electrolyzed-oxidizing water (EOW) and electrolyzed-reductive water (ERW) for Bacillus subtilis var. niger (ATCC9372) and Escherichia coli (8099). METHODS The generations of EOW and ERW were made in the ion membrane electrolysis cell. The sterilization manner was the suspension quantitative germicidal test. RESULTS The killing rate ...

BACKGROUND The amino acid derivative 3,4-dihydroxy L-phenylalanine (L-dopa) is gaining interest as a drug of choice for Parkinson's disease. Aspergillus oryzae is commonly used for L-dopa production; however, a slower growth rate and relatively lower tyrosinase activity of mycelia have led to an increasing interest in exploiting alternative fungal cultures. In the present investigation, we repo...

The aim of this study was to obtain a better understanding of the pentose catabolism in Aspergillus niger and the regulatory systems that affect it. To this end, we have cloned and characterised the genes encoding A. niger L-arabitol dehydrogenase (ladA) and xylitol dehydrogenase (xdhA), and compared the regulation of these genes to other genes of the pentose catabolic pathway. This demonstrate...

Conidial germination is fundamentally important to the growth and dissemination of most fungi. It has been previously shown (K. Hayer, M. Stratford, and D. B. Archer, Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 79:6924-6931, 2013, http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/AEM.02061-13), using sugar analogs, that germination is a 2-stage process involving triggering of germination and then nutrient uptake for hyphal outgrowth. I...

For the catabolism of D-glucuronate, different pathways are used by different life forms. The pathways in bacteria and animals are established, however, a fungal pathway has not been described. In this communication, we describe an enzyme that is essential for D-glucuronate catabolism in the filamentous fungus Aspergillus niger. The enzyme has an NADH dependent 2-keto-L-gulonate reductase activ...