Sea lettuce (Ulva pertusa) is a nuisance species of green algae that is found all over the world. East-Asian species of the marine gastropod, the sea hare Aplysia kurodai, shows a clear feeding preference for sea lettuce. Compared with cellulose, sea lettuce contains a higher amount of starch as a storage polysaccharide. However, the entire amylolytic system in the digestive fluid of A. kurodai...

Boswellia sacra, an economically important frankincense-producing tree found in the desert woodlands of Oman, is least known for its endophytic fungal diversity and the potential of these fungi to produce extracellular enzymes and auxins. We isolated various fungal endophytes belonging to Eurotiales (11.8%), Chaetomiaceae (17.6%), Incertae sadis (29.5%), Aureobasidiaceae (17.6%), Nectriaceae (5...

Imino sugars are used to treat type 2 diabetes mellitus [miglitol (Glyset)] and lysosomal storage disorders [miglustat (Zavesca)] based on the inhibition of alpha-glucosidases and glucosyltransferases. In this substrate specificity study, we examined the interactions of imino sugars with a novel human glucose sensor, sodium/glucose cotransporter type 3 (hSGLT3), using expression in Xenopus laev...

1,6-Dideoxy-6,6-difluoronojirimycin (1) was prepared from an easily accessible and commercially available starting material, methyl 2,3,4-tri-O-benzyl-α-D-glucopyranoside. Key steps of this synthesis are a difluorination reaction using DAST and a reductive amination. The overall yield of the synthesis is 44%. Compound 1 has been tested for its activity as an inhibitor of various glucosidases an...

Activity-based protein profiling has emerged as a powerful tool for visualizing glycosidases in complex biological samples. Several configurational cyclophellitol isomers have been shown to display high selectivity as probes for glycosidases processing substrates featuring the same configuration. Here, a set of deoxygenated cyclophellitols are presented which enable inter-class profiling of β-g...

Glucosidases are a group of enzymes responsible of the glycosidic bond cleavage with different specificities depending on the number of monosaccharides, the position of cleavage, and the configuration of the hydroxy groups in their substrates. In particular, inhibitors of a-1,4-glucosidases have generated great interest as potential therapeutic agents for the treatment of type II diabetes (e.g....

BACKGROUND Glycoside hydrolases (GHs) and accessory proteins are key components for efficient and cost-effective enzymatic hydrolysis of polysaccharides in modern, biochemically based biorefineries. Currently, commercialized GHs and accessory proteins are produced by ascomycetes. However, the role of wood decay basidiomycetes proteins in biomass saccharification has not been extensively pursued...

Cytophaga hutchinsonii can rapidly digest crystalline cellulose without free cellulases or cellulosomes. Its cell-contact cellulose degradation mechanism is unknown. In this study, the four β-glucosidase (bgl) genes in C. hutchinsonii were singly and multiply deleted, and the functions of these β-glucosidases in cellobiose and cellulose degradation were investigated. We found that the constitut...

BACKGROUND Lignocellulosic biomass is one of earth's most abundant resources, and it has great potential for biofuel production because it is renewable and has carbon-neutral characteristics. Lignocellulose is mainly composed of carbohydrate polymers (cellulose and hemicellulose), which contain approximately 75 % fermentable sugars for biofuel fermentation. However, saccharification by cellulas...

BACKGROUND Recently, the increased demand of energy has strongly stimulated the research on the conversion of lignocellulosic biomass into reducing sugars for the subsequent production, and β-glucosidases have been the focus because of their important roles in a variety fundamental biological processes and the synthesis of useful β-glucosides. Although the β-glucosidases of different sources ha...