Applications of DNA shuffling to pharmaceuticals and vaccines

DNA shuffling is a practical process for directed molecular evolution which uses recombination to dramatically accelerate the rate at which one can evolve genes. Single and multigene traits that require many mutations for improved phenotypes can be evolved rapidly. DNA shuffling technology has been significantly enhanced in the past year, extending its range of applications to small molecule pharmaceuticals, pharmaceutical proteins, gene therapy vehicles and transgenes, vaccines and evolved viruses for vaccines, and laboratory animal models.     

The electron impact, chemical ionization and fast atom bombardment positive ion mass spectra of 1,2-bis(sulfonyl)methylhydrazines.

A series of bis(sulfonyl)-1-methylhydrazines were analyzed by positive ion electron impact (EI), chemical ionization (CI) and fast atom bombardment (FAB) mass spectrometry. Since these compounds showed activity against the L1210 leukemia, an understanding of their mass spectral behavior is important should the structural characterization of metabolites be required. FAB proved to be the most useful technique, generally providing abundant protonated molecule ion peaks, in contrast to the weak peaks observed with CI (ammonia or isobutane) and the total absence of molecular ion peaks in the EI mass spectra. In addition, utilizing FAB eliminated the problem of thermal decomposition, which was very difficult to control under EI and CI experimental conditions. Fragments observed in FAB and CI mass spectra were consistent with protonation at the methyl-bearing nitrogen. One can locate the R1 and R2 moieties relative to the methyl-bearing nitrogen in FAB and CI by assigning that nitrogen as the site of protonation, with subsequent elimination of R2SO2H.     

Purification and further characterization of the second nitrate reductase of Escherichia coli K12

Two nitrate reductases, nitrate reductase A and nitrate reductase Z, exist in Escherichia coli. The nitrate reductase Z enzyme has been purified from the membrane fraction of a strain which is deleted for the operon encoding the nitrate reductase A enzyme and which harbours a multicopy plasmid carrying the nitrate reductase Z structural genes; it was purified 219 times with a yield of about 11%. It is an Mr-230,000 complex containing 13 atoms iron and 12 atoms labile sulfur/molecule. The presence of a molybdopterin cofactor in the nitrate reductase Z complex was demonstrated by reconstitution experiments of the molybdenum-cofactor-deficient NADPH-dependent nitrate reductase activity from a Neurospora crassa nit-1 mutant and by fluorescence emission and excitation spectra of stable derivatives of molybdoterin extracted from the purified enzyme. Both nitrate reductases share common properties such as relative molecular mass, subunit composition and electron donors and acceptors. Nevertheless, they diverge by two properties: their electrophoretic migrations are very different (RF of 0.38 for nitrate reductase Z versus 0.23 for nitrate reductase A), as are their susceptibilities to trypsin. An immunological study performed with a serum raised against nitrate reductase Z confirmed the existence of common epitopes in both complexes but unambiguously demonstrated the presence of specific determinants in nitrate reductase Z. Furthermore, it revealed a peculiar aspect of the regulation of both nitrate reductases: the nitrate reductase A enzyme is repressed by oxygen, strongly inducible by nitrate and positively controlled by the fnr gene product; on the contrary, the nitrate reductase Z enzyme is produced aerobically, barely induced by nitrate and repressed by the fnr gene product in anaerobiosis.     

Homeostasis of cell composition during prolonged darkness

The chemical composition of organisms in relation to their environmental resource availability is an area of intense research activity. We studied the changes in cell composition of the cyanobacterium Phormidium autumnale in response to prolonged darkness. Cells allocated their internal resources in a homeostatic manner, oxidizing all the three major cellular constituents in a proportional way. This resulted in constant C/N and carbohydrates, lipids and proteins ratios that remained unaltered throughout the whole incubation period. We propose the maintenance of balanced cell composition (homeostasis) as an evolutionary strategy related to environmental transitory changes.