Background: In spite of the numerous depigmenting agents available, there is an inverse relationship between safety and efficiency. Natural retinoids exert depigmenting activities in vivo, but have a narrow therapeutic window. There is thus a need for a new class of depigmenting agents that would be both safe and useful. Objective: The aim of the study was to analyse the potential interest of n...

The rhizosphere nitrogen-fixing bacterium Azospirillum irakense KBC1 is able to grow on pectin and beta-glucosides such as cellobiose, arbutin, and salicin. Two adjacent genes, salA and salB, conferring beta-glucosidase activity to Escherichia coli, have been identified in a cosmid library of A. irakense DNA. The SalA and SalB enzymes preferentially hydrolyzed aryl beta-glucosides. A Delta(salA...

Thermotoga neapolitana beta-glucosidase (BglA) was subjected to site-directed mutagenesis in an effort to increase its ability to synthesize arbutin derivatives by transglycosylation. The transglycosylation reaction of the wild-type enzyme displays major beta(1,6) and minor beta(1,3) or beta(1,4) regioselectivity. The three mutants, N291T, F412S, and N291T/F412S, increased the ratio of transgly...

Arthrobacter chlorophenolicus A6 is a Gram-positive, 4-chlorophenol-degrading soil bacterium that was recently shown to be an effective colonizer of plant leaf surfaces. The genetic basis for this phyllosphere competency is unknown. In this paper, we describe the genome-wide expression profile of A.chlorophenolicus on leaves of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) compared with growth on agar surfa...

Tyrosinase is the key and rate-limiting enzyme responsible for the conversion of tyrosine into melanin. Competitive inhibition of tyrosinase enzymatic activity results in decreased or absent melanin synthesis by melanocytes in human skin. DeoxyArbutin (4-[(tetrahydro-2H-pyran-2-yl)oxy]phenol), a novel skin whitening agent, was synthesized through the removal of hydroxyl groups from the glucose ...