ABSTRACT
Surfactants find wide commercial use as foaming agents, emulsifiers, and dispersants. Currently, surfactants are produced from petroleum, or from seed oils such as palm or coconut oil. Due to concerns with CO(2) emissions and the need to protect rainforests, there is a growing necessity to manufacture these chemicals using sustainable resources In this report, we describe the engineering of a native nonribosomal peptide synthetase pathway (i.e., surfactin synthetase), to generate a Bacillus strain that synthesizes a highly water-soluble acyl amino acid surfactant, rather than the water insoluble lipopeptide surfactin. This novel product has a lower CMC and higher water solubility than myristoyl glutamate, a commercial surfactant. This surfactant is produced by fermentation of cellulosic carbohydrate as feedstock. This method of surfactant production provides an approach to sustainable manufacturing of new surfactants.
Subject(s)
Bacillus subtilis/metabolism , Bacterial Proteins/genetics , Lipopeptides/biosynthesis , Peptide Synthases/genetics , Peptides, Cyclic/biosynthesis , Surface-Active Agents/metabolism , Amino Acid Sequence , Bacillus subtilis/enzymology , Bacillus subtilis/genetics , Bacterial Proteins/metabolism , Cellulose/metabolism , Fermentation , Glutamic Acid/analogs & derivatives , Glutamic Acid/chemistry , Glutamic Acid/metabolism , Lipopeptides/chemistry , Lipopeptides/metabolism , Micelles , Molecular Sequence Data , Peptide Synthases/metabolism , Peptides, Cyclic/chemistry , Protein Engineering , Solubility , Surface-Active Agents/chemistryABSTRACT
We describe a set of RNA molecules that work as transcriptional activators when tethered to DNA. These RNA activating regions were found amongst a randomized set of molecules bearing variants of a 10 nt loop attached to an RNA stem. The various RNA activating regions all bear an identical five- residue sequence with an interspersed sixth residue. The result shows that although all natural activating regions characterized thus far are peptidic, this function can be served by other kinds of moieties as well.
Subject(s)
RNA/genetics , Transcriptional Activation/genetics , Base Sequence , Binding Sites/genetics , Molecular Sequence Data , Nucleic Acid Conformation , Oligoribonucleotides/genetics , RNA/chemistry , RNA/isolation & purification , Saccharomyces cerevisiae/geneticsABSTRACT
We seek to create useful biological diversity by exploiting the modular nature of genetic information. In this report we describe experiments that focus on the modular nature of plasmid cloning vectors. Bacterial plasmids are modular entities composed of origins of replication, selectable markers and other components. We describe a new ligation-independent cloning method that allows for rapid and seamless assembly of vectors from component modules. We further demonstrate that gene cloning can be accomplished simultaneously with assembly of a modular vector. This approach provides considerable flexibility as it allows for 'menu driven' cloning of genes into custom assembled modular vectors.
Subject(s)
Cloning, Molecular/methods , Genetic Vectors/genetics , DNA Primers/genetics , DNA-Directed DNA Polymerase/metabolism , Escherichia coli/genetics , Genetic Markers , Plasmids/genetics , Polymerase Chain Reaction/methods , Ribonucleotides/genetics , Ribonucleotides/metabolism , Time FactorsABSTRACT
In this issue of Molecular Cell, Zhang et al. and Møller et al. independently report studies of the E. coli Hfq protein, revealing significant sequence similarities with human Sm proteins. Their findings suggest that Hfq, and the Sm and Sm-like (Lsm) proteins, may function in stabilizing interactions between RNA molecules.
