EXPRESSION OF SYNTHESIZED HIRUDIN GENE IN YEAST

Hirudin is a sort of polypeptides secreted from the salivary gland of medicinal leech. It is of potential importance in medicine. We designed and synthesized the hirudin gene based on the amino acid sequence of hirudin HV2, and expressed it using the yeast alpha factor expression system. The yeast strain stably carrying the hirudin expression plasmid was deduced by mutagenesis. After its cultivation in rich nutritious medium for 36—48 h, the hirudin expression product secreted into the culture fluid was 10—20 ATU/ml. The HPLCpure hirudin product could be obtained through a simpler purification procedure, its N-terminal amino acid sequence was identical with the natural product, and it showed potent anticoagulant and antithrombin activity. About 3000 ATU of pure hirudin witha specific activity of 6600 ATU/mg could be obtained from 500 ml of culture fluid.     

CLONING, EXPRESSION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF Pro3 GENE OF YEAST Saccharomyces cerevisiae

The proline biosynthetic pathway and Pro genes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae have just begun to be studied recently. In our laboratory, Pro2 gene of S. cerevisiae had been cloned in yeast. As described in this paper, yeast Pro3 gene was also cloned, which can complement yeast Pro3 mutants, and be expressed efficiently in E. coli. The high activities of this gene product, L-pyrroline-5-carboxylate (P5C) reductase, can be detected in both organisms. The activity of the Pro3 gene product in multiple copy plasmids is not higher than that of single copy genes in chromosomes in both yeast and E. coll. The preliminary characterization of the gene is also reported.     

ALTERATION IN CHROMATIN CONFORMATION OF PROLIFERATING AND DIFFERENTIATING ENZYME GENES IN NORMAL MOUSE LIVER AND ASCITES HEPATOMA CELLS AND ITS RELATION TO THE GENE EXPRESSION OF ENZYMES

Nuclei from the normal mouse liver were partially digested with micrococcal nuclease, followed by DNA extraction, agarose gel clectrophoresis and dot blot hybridization with ~(32)P-labeled cDNA probes of CPS_1 and ACT complex, It was clearly shown that the CPS_1 genes were distributed on the monomer, dimer. and trimer of nucleosomes, while the genes coding for ACT complex were distributed on the condensed oligonucleosomes. An opposite manner of distribution of CPS_1 and ACT complex genes was, however, noted in the case of ascites hepatoma cells, in which the specific activity of ACT was 13 times higher than that in the normal liver, while that of CPS_1 was remarkably reduced. Similar patterns of change in mRNA level of CPS_1 and ACT complex were observed in the normal mouse liver and ascites hepatoma cells, indicating a close relationship between chromatin structure and gene expression of these enzymes.     

STRUCTURE OF THE MITOCHONDRIAL URFA6L GENE AND tRNA~(Lys) GENE FROM CARP

The carp mitochondrial URFA6L gene consists of 165 base pairs. The overall structural organization of the gene is very similar to that of the Xenopus URFA6L gene. Their nucleotide sequences exhibit 68% homology. The carp URFA6L gene encodes a protein of 54 amino acids. The amino acid composition of the protein is unusual because almost half of the residues consist of 5 hydrophobic amino acids(proline, tryptophan, leueine, isoleueine and tyrosine). A comparison between the amino acid sequences of 5 vertebrate URFA6L proteins and the yeast ATPase8 showed that they have weak but very important common structural features, suggesting that the vertebrate URFA6L proteins may function asATPase8. The nucleotide sequence of the lysine tRNA gene from carp has been determined and represented in cloverleaf secondary structure. Similar to amphibian and mammalian mitochondrial tRNA~(Lys) genes, the carp mitochondrial tRNA~(Tys) gene also has some unusual structural features as compared with its cytoplasmic counterpart