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Biotechnological Potential (biotechnological + potential)
Selected AbstractsRalstonia pickettii in environmental biotechnology: potential and applicationsJOURNAL OF APPLIED MICROBIOLOGY, Issue 4 2007M.P. Ryan Summary Xenobiotic pollutants such as toluene and trichloroethylene are released into the environment by various industrial processes. Ralstonia pickettii possess significant biotechnological potential in the field of bioremediation and has demonstrated the ability to breakdown many of these toxic substances. Here, we provide a description of the major compounds that various strains of R. pickettii are capable of degrading and a brief review of their breakdown pathways and an argument for its use in bioremediation. [source] Small peptides, big world: biotechnological potential in neglected bioactive peptides from arthropod venoms,JOURNAL OF PEPTIDE SCIENCE, Issue 11 2005Adriano M. C. Pimenta Abstract Until recently, a toxinologist's tasks involved the search for highly toxic or lethal toxins in animal venoms that could explain the harmful effects in clinically observed symptoms. Most of these toxins were put on evidence using a function to structure approach, in which a biological phenomena observation usually guided the isolation and characterization of the causative molecule. Paving this way, many toxins were promptly purified because of their readily observed effect. Nevertheless, small molecules with micro-effects that are not easily visualized can be relatively neglected or poorly studied. This situation has changed now with the advent of the sensitivity, resolution and accuracy of techniques such as mass spectrometry and proteomic approaches used in toxinology. Taking advantage of these methodologies, small peptides with ,newly exploited' biological activities such as vasoactive, hormone-like, antimicrobial and others have been recently given much more attention, enlarging the known repertoire of bioactive molecules found in animal venoms. This article aims to review current knowledge on small biologically active peptides (<3 kDa) found in arthropod venoms and discuss their potentialities as new drug candidates or therapeutic lead compounds. Copyright © 2005 European Peptide Society and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Manipulation of DET1 expression in tomato results in photomorphogenic phenotypes caused by post-transcriptional gene silencingTHE PLANT JOURNAL, Issue 3 2004Ganga Rao Davuluri Summary The tomato HIGH PIGMENT-2 gene encodes an orthologue of the Arabidopsis nuclear protein DE-ETIOLATED 1 (DET1). From genetic analyses it has been proposed that DET1 is a negative regulator of light signal transduction, and recent results indicate that it may control light-regulated gene expression at the level of chromatin remodelling. To gain further understanding about the function of DET1 during plant development, we generated a range of overexpression constructs and introduced them into tomato. Unexpectedly, we only observed phenotypes characteristic of DET1 inactivation, i.e. hyper-responsiveness to light. Molecular analysis indicated in all cases that these phenotypes were a result of suppression of endogenous DET1 expression, due to post-transcriptional gene silencing. DET1 silencing was often lethal when it occurred at relatively early stages of plant development, whereas light hyper-responsive phenotypes were obtained when silencing occurred later on. The appearance of phenotypes correlated with the generation of siRNAs but not DNA hypermethylation, and was most efficient when using constructs with mutations in the DET1 coding sequence or with constructs containing only the 3,-terminal portion of the gene. These results indicate an important function for DET1 throughout plant development and demonstrate that silencing of DET1 in fruits results in increased carotenoids, which may have biotechnological potential. [source] Crystallization and preliminary X-ray crystallographic analysis of ,-galactosidase from Kluyveromyces lactisACTA CRYSTALLOGRAPHICA SECTION F (ELECTRONIC), Issue 3 2010Ángel Pereira-Rodríguez ,-Galactosidase from Kluyveromyces lactis catalyses the hydrolysis of the ,-galactosidic linkage in lactose. Owing to its many industrial applications, the biotechnological potential of this enzyme is substantial. This protein has been expressed in yeast and purified for crystallization trials. However, optimization of the best crystallization conditions yielded crystals with poor diffraction quality that precluded further structural studies. Finally, the crystal quality was improved using the streak-seeding technique and a complete diffraction data set was collected at 2.8,Ĺ resolution. [source] | |||||||||||||