Enterobacter sp. NRG4 was shown to excrete chitinase into the culture supernatant when cultivated in medium containing chitin. A 60 kDa extracellular chitinase was purified to homogeneity and characterized. The enzyme hydrolyzed swollen chitin, colloidal chitin, regenerated chitin and glycol chitin but did not hydrolyze chitosan. The chitinase exhibited Km and Vmax values of 1.43 mg ml and 83.3...

Evidence for the role of chitinases in biocontrol by Trichoderma species has been well documented.Chit42 lacks a chitin–binding domain (ChBD) which is involved in its binding activity to insoluble chitin. The objective of the present study was to enhance antifungal activity of T. harzianum by overexpression of wild type and hybrid forms of Chit42 containing chitin binding domain. To produce chi...

Chitin is a globally abundant polymer widely distributed throughout eukaryotes that has been well characterized in only a few lineages. Diatoms are members of the eukaryotic lineage of stramenopiles. Of the hundreds of diatom genera, two produce long fibers of chitin that extrude through their cell walls of silica. We identify and describe here genes encoding putative chitin synthases in a vari...

Members of the Vibrionaceae family are often associated with chitin-containing organisms, and they are thought to play a major role in chitin degradation. The purpose of the present study was to determine how chitin affects the transcriptome and metabolome of two bioactive Vibrionaceae strains, Vibrio coralliilyticus and Photobacterium galatheae. We focused on chitin degradation genes and secon...

Chitin and protein are two main building blocks for many natural biomaterials such as crustacean cuticles, sponge skeletons and squid beaks. These biological materials gain growing interests with respect to biomimetic material design, since they possess great mechanical properties due to their evolutionarily refined structures at different hierarchy levels. The interaction between chitin and pr...

This paper reviews studies on dissolution, derivatization, and nanomaterial processing of chitin using an ionic liquid as useful media. Because chitin is the second most abundant polysaccharide on the earth after cellulose, there is major interest in conversion of native chitin resources into various useful materials after proper dissolution in suitable solvents. For the derivatization and nano...

Chitin is commonly found in fungal cell walls and is one of the well-studied microbe/pathogen-associated molecular patterns. Previous studies showed that lysin motif (LysM)-containing proteins are essential for plant recognition of chitin, leading to the activation of plant innate immunity. In Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), the LYK1/CERK1 (for LysM-containing receptor-like kinase1/chitin e...

The shape and integrity of fungal cells is dependent on the skeletal polysaccharides in their cell walls of which beta(1,3)-glucan and chitin are of principle importance. The human pathogenic fungus Candida albicans has four genes, CHS1, CHS2, CHS3 and CHS8, which encode chitin synthase isoenzymes with different biochemical properties and physiological functions. Analysis of the morphology of c...

Chitin is a major molecular pattern for various fungi, and its fragments, chitin oligosaccharides, are known to induce various defense responses in plant cells. A plasma membrane glycoprotein, CEBiP (chitin elicitor binding protein) and a receptor kinase, CERK1 (chitin elicitor receptor kinase) (also known as LysM-RLK1), were identified as critical components for chitin signaling in rice and Ar...