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Background Lignocellulosic biomass is the most abundant resource on earth. Lignocellulose is mainly composed of cellulose, hemicelluloses, and lignin. The special construction of three kinds of constituents led to the prevention of effective degradation. The goal of this work was to investigate the great potentials of bovine rumen for novel cellulolytic bacterial isolation, which may be used for chemicals and biofuel production from lignocellulose. Results A cellulolytic strain, ZH-4, was isolated from Inner Mongolia bovine rumen. This strain was identified as Escherichia coli by morphological, physiological, and biochemical characteristics and 16S rDNA gene sequencing. The extracellular enzyme activity analysis showed that this strain produces extracellular cellulases with an exoglucanase activity of 9.13 IU, an endoglucanase activity of 5.31 IU, and a β-glucosidase activity of 7.27 IU at the pH 6.8. This strain was found to produce 0.36 g/L ethanol and 4.71 mL/g hydrogen from corn straw with cellulose degradation ratio of 14.30% and hemicellulose degradation ratio of 11.39%. Conclusions It is the first time that a cellulolytic E. coli was isolated and characterized form the bovine rumen. This provided a great opportunity for researchers to investigate the evolution mechanisms of the microorganisms in the rumen and provided great chance to produce biofuels and chemicals directly from engineered E. coli using consolidated bioprocess.

Peptide:N-glycanase has been thought to be responsible for proteasome-dependent degradation of misfolded glycoproteins translocated from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) to the cytosol. Therefore, the enzyme was supposed to be able to distinguish between native and non-native glycoproteins. In the present study, a recombinant, yeast peptide:N-glycanase, Png1p, was expressed in Escherichia coli as inclusion bodies and was purified, refolded and characterized. The results showed that the recombinant enzyme has a broad pH range adaptation, from pH 4.0 to pH 10.0, and has an optimum temperature of 30 oC. This enzyme is a zinc metalloenzyme. Its activity was abolished with the addition of EDTA and not restored by adding metal ions. Furthermore, the deglycosylation efficiency of recombinant Png1p from E. coli was investigated with respect to the substrate conformation in vitro. When ribonuclease B (RNase B) was denatured at 60−65 oC or by 40−60 mM dithiothreitol, indicated by its obvious structural change and sharpest activity change, its deglycosylation by Png1p was most prominent. The deglycosylation efficiency of RNase B by Png1p was found to be related to its structural conformation and enzymatic activity.

UDP-galactose 4-epimerase (EC 5.1.3.2, Gal E) from Escherichia coli catalyzes the reversible reaction between UDP-galactose and UDP-glucose. In this study, the Gal E gene from E. coli, coding UDP-galactose 4-epimerase, was cloned into pYD1 plasmid and then transformed into Saccharomyces cerevisiae EBY100 for expression of Gal E on the cell surface. Enzyme activity analyses with EBY100 cells showed that the enzyme displayed on the yeast cell surface was very active in the conversion between UDP-Glc and UDP-Gal. It took about 3 min to reach equilibrium from UDP-galactose to UDP-glucose.

As an emerging discipline, synthetic biology has shown great scientific values and application prospects. Although there have been many reviews of various aspects on synthetic biology over the last years, this article, for the first time, attempted to discuss the relationship and difference between microbial genetics and synthetic biology. We summarized the recent development of synthetic biology in rearranging microbial genetic materials, including synthesis, design and reduction of genetic materials, standardization of genetic parts and modularization of genetic circuits. The relationship between synthetic biology and microbial genetic engineering was also discussed in the paper.

In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, protein glycosylation passed two different N-linked modification pathways after the export of predominantly Man8 GlcNAc2-containing glycoproteins from ER to the Golgi. The core oligosaccharide undergoes maturation in the Golgi resulting in a Man8-13 GlcNAc2 structure. Alternatively, core structures may be hypermannosylated with up to 200 mannose residues composing of a backbone of alpha1,6-mannosyl residues with branched alpha1, 2- and alpha1,3-mannosyl side chains. Mnn1p and Och1p play an important role in this process. The null disruption of MNN1, OCH1 was replaced by the S. cerevisiae URA3, HIS3, respectively. To characterize the N-glycosylation in the mnn1 och1 mutant, mannoproteins were obtained by hot citrate buffer extraction after the mnn1 och1 cells were crumbled. The extracted mannoprotein was precipitated by ethanol, and further purified by concanavalin A-sepharose 4B. The N-oligomannose saccharides were released from mannoprotein by PNGase F digestion, and then peptides and detergents were removed by passage through ion exchange columns. For desalting, glycans were applied to porous graphitic-carbon cartridge. 2-aminopyridine pyridylaminated sugars were profiled and purified by size fractionation HPLC with Shim-pack cle-NH2 column, and result showed dominantly a single peak. MALDI TOF/MS analysis ofthis peak revealed that its molecular weight was 1796.5Da, which corresponds to the calculated mass of Man8 GlcNAc2-PA. These results indicated that disruptions of MNN1 and OCH1 eliminated the hypermannosylation of the N-linked glycans, and glycoproteins were glycosylated with a single core type glycan, Man8 GlcNAc2, in the mnn1 och1 mutant.

Cyclodextrin glucanotransferase, the essential enzyme for the production of cyclodextrins, has become the focus of scientific research nowadays. Although many related enzyme properties are well known, the crucial factors in product specificity determination remain to be answered. Here, the recent research progresses of cyclodextrin glucanotransferase, especially those about the evolution of product specificity, were reviewed, and the scientific problems were discussed.

As more bioactivities of oligosaccharides have been elucidated, researches on biosynthesis of oligosaccharides have drawn more concerns in Glycobiology. A lot of enzymatic methods for the synthesis of oligosacchrides have been developed employing recombinant E. coli expressed glycosyltranferase or synthase of nucleotide-sugar. This review focuses on the recent progress in the production of oligosaccharides using bacteria especially by genetically engineered bacteria. The key point concering the oligosaccharides biosynthesis in recombinant E. coli, such as enzyme expression, NDP-sugar provision and biosynthesis pathway, was discussed.

In order to obtain active recombinant PNGase F in Escherichia coli, a prokaryotic expression vector pET28a/PNGase F was constructed. Amplification of PNGase F was obtained using PCR technique employing suitable primers designed according to the PNGase F gene sequence from Flavobacterium nmeningosepticum. The expression of PNGase F gene in LB medium or M9 medium led to the formation of inclusion body and soluble protein, respectively. The refolding of the denatured inclusion body was successful by gradual dilution. Further purification of the refolded protein and soluble crude extract from M9 medium with Ni2+ -NTA argarose resulted a 90% purified PNGase F. The purified protein catalyzed the complete and intact cleavage of N-linked oligosaccharides from various glycoproteins. The efficiency of this cleavage was affected by the substrate status in the reaction system. In summary, we have developed an enzyme production system where PNGase F was over-expressed in recombinant E. coli. This system can provide more than 15 mg/L purified active PNGase F. This purified active PNGase F can be used as tools in analyzing the oligosaccharide structure.