Characterization of two cryptic plasmids from Kocuria palustris IPUFS-1 and construction of novel Escherichia coli–Kocuria shuttle vector for biocatalysis
Hiroshi Toda, Takashi Koyanagi, Toshiki Enomoto, Nobuya Itoh

Heterologous expression of bacterial phosphoenol pyruvate carboxylase and Entner–Doudoroff pathway in Saccharomyces cerevisiae for improvement of isobutanol production
Keisuke Morita, Yuta Nomura, Jun Ishii, Fumio Matsuda, Akihiko Kondo, Hiroshi Shimizu

Highlights

・Expansion of the yeast metabolism was demonstrated.
・Bacterial phosphoenol pyruvate carboxylase increased in the isobutabol titer 1.45-fold.
・Introduction of Entner–Doudoroff (ED) pathway had no effect to isobutanol bio-production.
・Further tracer and metabolome analyses revealed that ED pathway was successfully constructed in yeast.
・Activity of the ED pathway, however, was too weak to improve isobutanol biosynthesis.

Characterization of a novel thermostable GH45 endoglucanase from Chaetomium thermophilum and its biodegradation of pectin
Qinzheng Zhou, Peng Ji, Jianye Zhang, Xue Li, Chao Han

Gene identification and characterization of fucoidan deacetylase for potential application to fucoidan degradation and diversification
Tatsuhiko Nagao, Ayako Kumabe, Fumika Komatsu, Hisashi Yagi, Hirokazu Suzuki, Takashi Ohshiro

Function of a thermophilic archaeal chaperonin is enhanced by electrostatic interactions with its targets
Le Gao, Ryota Hidese, Shinsuke Fujiwara

Characterization of a thermostable glycoside hydrolase family 36 α-galactosidase from Caldicellulosiruptor bescii
Areum Lee, Kyoung-Hwa Choi, Dahye Yoon, Suhkmann Kim, Jaeho Cha

In vitro bioconversion of chitin to pyruvate with thermophilic enzymes
Kohsuke Honda, Keisuke Kimura, Pham Huynh Ninh, Hironori Taniguchi, Kenji Okano, Hisao Ohtake

Acclimation to NaCl and light stress of heterotrophic Chlamydomonas reinhardtii for lipid accumulation
Jianhua Fan, lvhong Zheng

Highlights

・NaCl treatments (25-200 mM) gradually suppressed the cell growth.
・Cells restored slow growth with light supplement in low salt concentration.
・The highest lipid content and productivity were achieved by 50 mM NaCl stress and light treatment.
・Fv/Fm and NPQ value were markedly influenced under salt and light stress.
・Dynamic changes of cell growth and metabolism would be caused by the increase of intracellular redox state.

In vivo evolutionary engineering for ethanol-tolerance of Saccharomyces cerevisiae haploid cells triggers diploidization
Burcu Turanli-Yildiz, Laurent Benbadis, Ceren Alkim, Tugba Sezgin, Arman Aksit, Abdulmecit Gokce, Yavuz ozturk, Ahmet Tarik Baykal, Zeynep Petek Cakar, Jean M. Francois

Highlights

・Evolutionary engineering based on ethanol stress selection yielded strains with up to 12% (v v-1) ethanol tolerance.
・Diploidization of the haploid yeast population occurred at around 7% (v v-1) ethanol level during evolutionary selection.・Viability and ethanol productivity of the evolved strains were significantly higher in aerated fed-batch cultivation.
・Transcriptomic and proteomic data showed elevated glycolytic and ribosomal proteins and lower respiratory capacity.

Effect of free ammonium and free nitrous acid on the activity, aggregate morphology and extracellular polymeric substance distribution of ammonium oxidizing bacteria in partial nitrification
Qian Yao, Dangcong Peng, Bo Wang, Yuanyuan Chen, Jiaqi Li, Qiaodi Zhao, Binbin Wang

High-pressure thermophilic electromethanogenic system producing methane at 5 MPa, 55°C
Hajime Kobayashi, Ayano Nagashima, Miki Kouyama, Qian Fu, Masayuki Ikarashi, Haruo Maeda, Kozo Sato

Quantitative evaluation of inhibitory effect of various substances on anaerobic ammonia oxidation (anammox)
Tomotaka Nakamura, Yuhki Harigaya, Yuya Kimura, Megumi Kuroiwa, Yuhri Kurata, Kazuichi Isaka, Yuichi Suwa

Highlights

・IC50 values for inhibition of anammox by 20 chemicals were determined.
・Inhibitory effects were concentration-dependent and often time-dependent.
・The applicable inhibition model and IC50 were largely dependent on chemical species.
・IC50 of EDTA was reduced, if it was formed a chelate complex with metal cations.

Mixed-culture H2 fermentation performance and the relation between microbial community composition and hydraulic retention times for a fixed bed reactor fed with galactose/glucose mixtures
Parthiban Anburajan, Jong-Hun Park, Periyasamy Sivagurunathan, Arivalagan Pugazhendhi, Gopalakrishnan Kumar, Chang-Su Choi, Sang-Hyoun Kim

Highlights

・H2 fermentation using galactose: glucose mixture (4:1 ratio) was studied.
・Peak H2 yield of 2.3 mol H2/mol hexoseadded achieved.
・Dominant bacterial population was found as Clostridia followed by Lactobacillus sp.

Effect of temperature post viral vector inoculation on the amount of hemagglutinin transiently expressed in Nicotiana benthamiana leaves
Ryo Matsuda, Tatsuki Abe, Naomichi Fujiuchi, Nobuyuki Matoba, Kazuhiro Fujiwara

Morphology-based non-invasive quantitative prediction of the differentiation status of neural stem cells
Masaya Fujitani, Noor Safika Huddin, Shun Kawai, Kei Kanie, Yasujiro Kiyota, Kazunori Shimizu, Hiroyuki Honda, Ryuji Kato

Highlights

・Morphological parameters provides fingerprint to classify the effects of media.
・Morphological parameters can predict neural differentiation potential.
・Only 4 days of morphology is sufficient for predicting 7th day differentiation.

Estimation of the influence of sequencing errors and distribution of random-sequence tags on quantitative sequencing
Tatsuhiko Hoshino, Yohei Hamada

Corrigendum to “Novel high-throughput and widely-targeted liquid chromatography-time of flight mass spectrometry method for d-amino acids in foods” [J. Biosci. Bioeng. 123 (2017) 126-133]
Yutaka Konya, Moyu Taniguchi, Eiichiro Fukusaki