Removal of lignin in a liquid system by an isolated fungus

The screening of a strain which could perform lignin removal was carried out. Based on taxonomic study the isolated strain (LM‐2) was identified as Penicillium sp. LM‐2 could decolorize 0.6 g dm^?3 lignin within 4 days in a shaking culture at 25 °C. The efficiency of decolorization of the lignin was over 80% in the pH range of 4.0–6.0, but was low above pH 6.2. The rise of temperature had a slight adverse effect on the lignin decolorization in the range of 25–35 °C. Lignolytic enzymes such as lignin peroxidase, manganese peroxidase and laccase were not detected in the culture broth or within the fungal cells. The lignin was removed from the high molecular weight fraction mainly by adsorption and accumulation inside the cells. © 2001 Society of Chemical Industry     

Small-angle X-ray scattering of long-period structures forming bundles

Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) patterns have been calculated based on a structure model, which consisted of the bundles of long-period structures. The proposed model has produced various scattering patterns of polymers, such as the equatorial, layer line, four-spot, droplet-shaped and triangular scattering. The 0.5th order scattering has arisen when the disorder in or between the long-period structures was large even though the structure did not have the periodicity directly related to the scattering maximum. A slight decrease in the disorder due to slip between the long-period structures has accounted for the sudden change of the SAXS pattern of a poly(ethylene terephthalate) fiber from the four-spot to the layer line scattering which was caused by a slight tensile deformation.     

Preparation of polymer-supported amino acid

Summary Insoluble polymer-supported amino acids have been synthesized by simple one-pot synthesis. Amino acids were solubilized in organic solvent by trimethylsilylation. Solubilized amino acids (L-Tyr, L-Ser, D-HPG, L-Cys) having functional groups such as OH or SH were easily attached to crosslinked polystyrene beads through benzyl ether or thioether linkage. Other amino acids without extra functional groups could be attached to the polymer through benzyl amine linkage.     

Semiautomatic leakage analyzing system for time series fluorescein ocular fundus angiography

An algorithm for measuring an index of leakage in fluorescein fundus angiography is presented. The number of pixels whose gray level exceeds an automatically determined slice level is calculated. An automatic blood vessel elimination technique is introduced. Further, a method of measuring the short term change of leakage from a time series of the fluorescein fundus angiographs is described. Our system can also deal with the time series images obtained on different occasions (long term change).The features of this paper are: (1) this paper deals with double time sequence images (short and long term); (2) an automatic blood vessel recognition algorithm is employed.     

Efficient utilization of ectoine by halophilic Brevibacterium species and Escherichia coli subjected to osmotic downshock

Halophilic and non-halophilic bacteria subjected to osmotic downshock, from 0.7 M NaCl to deionized water, were examined for their survival, with the uptake and utilization of the cyclic amino acid ectoine, one of the representative compatible solutes, being taken into account. The uptake of ectoine added externally and survival of the cells were monitored as a function of incubation time in the presence and absence of NaCl. The halophilic Brevibacterium sp. JCM 6894 and B. epidermidis JCM 2593 actively accumulated ectoine regardless of the presence of NaCl, which led to cell survival. Brevibacterium casei JCM 2594 belonging to the same Brevibacterium species, however, revealed Na+-dependence of its uptake activity of ectoine. Non-halophilic Escherichia coli K-12 did not accumulate ectoine, and thereby this strain failed to survive irrespective of whether NaCl was present. The physiological meanings of the downshock procedure are discussed in connection with the uptake and the subsequent utilization of ectoine.     

Experimental study on the free surface deformation in the oxide melt

1 Introduction The convective motion induced by local variations of surface tension along a liquid free surface is called Marangoni convection. Flows driven by a temperature gradient aligned parallel to the free surface are often named thermocapillary convection, which is often a dominating effect in material processing techniques. It is well known for the melt crystal growth that the thermocapillary convection becomes instable at high Marangoni numbers, which gives rise to temperature oscill…     

Isolation of the YAP1 homologue of Candida utilis and its use as an efficient selection marker

The industrially important yeast Candida utilis is widely used in the production of food and medical materials, but its practical host-vector system has not been well developed. In order to construct a food-grade host-vector system, we isolated the YAP1 homologue, CuYAP1, of C. utilis IAM4264 and evaluated its use as a selection marker in transformation. A DNA probe was obtained by PCR using degenerate primers and the CuYAP1-encoding 438 amino acid protein was isolated by hybridization. Although the amino acid identity of Yap1 and CuYap1 was 28.7% as a whole, the characteristic bZip region and two cysteine-rich domains (CRDs) showed a higher homology. CuYAP1 was inserted in a CuGAP1 expression cassette of the C. utilis ARS vector pRI177, and C. utilis AHU3053 was transformed with this plasmid. A number of transformant colonies grew in the presence of cycloheximide, which indicated that CuGAP1-CuYAP1 is an effective selection marker. The transformant also showed higher resistance to other agents, including cadmium and fluconazole. The overexpression of CuYAP1 in S. cerevisiae also resulted in increased resistance to various types of drugs.