S-Adenosylmethionine synthetase (SAM synthetase) catalyzes the synthesis of S-adenosylmethionine (SAM), which plays an important role in cellular functions such as methylation, sulfuration, and polyamine synthesis. To develop a simple and effective way to enzymatically synthesize and produce SAM, a soluble form of SAM synthetase encoded by SAM2 from Saccharomyces cerevisiae was successfully pro...

Recombinant modified vaccinia virus Ankara (MVA) has been used to deliver vaccine candidate antigens against infectious diseases and cancer. MVA is a potent viral vector for inducing high magnitudes of antigen-specific CD8+ T cells; however the cellular immune responses to a recombinant antigen in MVA could be further enhanced by increasing transgene expression. Previous reports showed the impo...

Bacillus circulans Jordan 32352 was isolated from decaying organic matter in the New Jersey soil in the early 1930s. This soil-dwelling bacterium produced an enzyme capable of degrading the type 3 capsular polysaccharide (Pn3P) of Streptococcus pneumoniae (Spn). Early reports of this enzyme, Pn3Pase, demonstrated its inducibility by, and specificity for Pn3P. We set out to identify and clone th...

Pompe disease is a lysosomal storage disorder characterized by muscle weakness and cardiomyopathy. It shows a broad variability regarding the clinical severity as well as the age of onset. In the past, two different recombinant enzyme preparations have been developed for the treatment of Pompe patients: alpha-glucosidase, produced in rabbit milk, and alpha-glucosidase, produced in Chinese hamst...

β-Glucosidase is an important enzyme for production of ethanol from lignocellulose. With hydrolytic activity on cellooligosaccharides, especially cellobiose, β-glucosidase removes product inhibitory effect on cellulases and forms fermentable sugars. In this study, β-glucosidase encoding gene (BGL1) from traditional starter yeast Saccharomycosis fibuligera BMQ908 was cloned and expressed in Pich...

L-Asparaginase (E.C. 3.5.1.1) is used as an anti-neoplastic drug in the treatment of acute lymphoblastic leukemia. L-Asparaginase from Pseudomonas fluorescens was cloned and overexpressed in E. coli BL21. The Enzyme was found to be a Fusion protein-asparaginase complex which was given a lysozyme treatment and sonication, and then was purified in a Sepharose 6B column. The enzymatic properties o...

The development and recent approval of recombinant acid alpha-glucosidase for enzyme replacement therapy have been major milestones in Pompe disease research. Acid alpha-glucosidase is the enzyme responsible for degradation of glycogen polymers to glucose in the acidic milieu of the lysosomes. Cardiac and skeletal muscles are the two major tissues affected by the accumulation of glycogen within...