Transcriptome sequencing and de novo analysis of the northern snakehead, Ophiocephalus argus.

Northern snakehead, Ophiocephalus argus Cantor, is an endemic freshwater fish in China. However, wild stocks of O. argus are dwindling sharply. Further, water conservancy projects, environmental pollution and human activities have caused the decrease of wild stocks, which has attracted much attention. Here, we have investigated the genomic information of O. argus using IlluminaHiseq 4000 sequencing. The transcriptomes of O. argus were sequenced by Illumina technology. A total of 67,564 sequences from 79,500,964 paired-end reads were generated, 33,710 unigenes were annotated based on protein databases (NCBI nonredundant (NR) databases). In total, 7182 unigenes had the clusters of orthologous group (COG) classifications, 33,710 unigenes were assigned to 59 gene ontology (GO) terms. Further, a total of 21,464 simple sequence repeats (SSRs) from 67,564 unigenes and 113,518 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) sites among 335 Mclean reads were yielded for O. argus based on a transcriptome-wide search. The new transcriptome data which is presented in this study for O. argus will provide valuable information for gene discovery and downstream applications, such as phylogenetic analysis, gene-expression profiling and identification of genetic markers (SSRs andSNP).

Highly enantioselective reduction of 2-hydroxy-1-phenylethanone to enantiopure (R)-phenyl-1,2-ethanediol using Saccharomyces cerevisiae of remarkable reaction stability.

Saccharomyces cerevisiae JUC15 was successfully obtained by target reaction-oriented screening, which reduced 2-hydroxy-1-phenylethanone (HPE) to (R)-phenyl-1,2-ethanediol ((R)-PED) of excellent enantiomeric excess (e.e. >99.9%). There was no significant decrease in the yield and optical purity of (R)-PED when the free cells were reused for 40 repeated cycles at 2gL(-1) substrate concentration. The strain used cheap sucrose for cofactor regeneration and worked over a considerably wider range of pH (4-9). The optimum substrate concentration was 8gL(-1), which was higher than any other biocatalysts reported so far. Interesting, when HPE concentration reached 20gL(-1) in reaction system, where 43.2% of the substrate was present in suspended solid form, the reaction still gave enantiopure (R)-PED in 71% yield. Last but not least, the product e.e. kept above 99.9% in all examined conditions. These results suggest the potential of this strain for the industrial production of optically active (R)-PED.

Enhancement of Candida parapsilosis catalyzing deracemization of (R,S)-1-phenyl-1,2-ethanediol to its (S)-enantiomer by a highly productive "two-in-one" resin-based in situ product removal strategy.

In this study, a highly efficient process for Candida parapsilosis-catalyzed deracemization of racemic 1-phenyl-1,2-ethanediol (PED) was described, based on a resin-based in situ substrate feeding and product removal (ISSFPR) methodology. The resin H103 was selected and used to keep the combined concentration of (R)-PED and (S)-PED at about 15g/l in aqueous phase. In the presence of 143g/l H103 resin, 50g/l of racemic substrate was converted to (S)-PED with 99.3% enantiomeric excess (ee) in 92% yield, while the initial reaction could afford an ee>99% only when the substrate concentration was 15g/l or lower. To our knowledge, this was the first report on the application of a resin-based ISSFPR technique for enhancing the efficiency of microbial stereoinversion.