Shangyong Li

Obesity and its related complications have become one of the leading problems affecting human health. However, current anti-obesity treatments are limited by high cost and numerous adverse effects. In this study, we investigated the use of a non-toxic green food additive, known as unsaturated alginate oligosaccharides (UAOS) from the enzymatic degradation of Laminaria japonicais, which showed effective anti-obesity effects in a high-fat diet (HFD) mouse model. Compared with acid hydrolyzed saturated alginate oligosaccharides (SAOS), UAOS significantly reduced body weight, serum lipid, including triacylglycerol (TG), total cholesterol (TC) and free fatty acids (FFA), liver weight, liver TG and TC, serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT), and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) levels, adipose mass, reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation, and accumulation induced in HFD mice. Moreover, the structural differences in β-d-mannuronate (M) and its C5 epimer α-l-guluronate (G) did not cause significant functional differences. Meanwhile, UAOS significantly increased both AMP-activated protein kinase α (AMPKα) and acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACC) phosphorylation in adipocytes, which indicated that UAOS had an anti-obesity effect mainly through AMPK signaling. Our results indicate that UAOS has the potential for further development as an adjuvant treatment for many metabolic diseases such as fatty liver, hypertriglyceridemia, and possibly diabetes.

Metalloproteases are emerging as useful agents in the treatment of many diseases including arthritis, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and fibrosis. Studies that could shed light on the metalloprotease pharmaceutical applications require the pure enzyme. Here, we reported the structure-based design and synthesis of the affinity medium for the efficient purification of metalloprotease using the 4-aminophenylboronic acid (4-APBA) as affinity ligand, which was coupled with Sepharose 6B via cyanuric chloride as spacer. The molecular docking analysis showed that the boron atom was interacting with the hydroxyl group of Ser176 residue, whereas the hydroxyl group of the boronic moiety is oriented toward Leu175 and His177 residues. In addition to the covalent bond between the boron atom and hydroxyl group of Ser176, the spacer between boronic acid derivatives and medium beads contributes to the formation of an enzyme-medium complex. With this synthesized medium, we developed and optimized a one-step purification procedure and applied it for the affinity purification of metalloproteases from three commercial enzyme products. The native metalloproteases were purified to high homogeneity with more than 95% purity. The novel purification method developed in this work provides new opportunities for scientific, industrial and pharmaceutical projects.

Unsaturated alginate disaccharides (UADs), enzymatically derived from the degradation of alginate polymers, are considered powerful antioxidants. In this study, a new high UAD-producing alginate lyase, AlySY08, has been purified from the marine bacterium Vibrio sp. SY08. AlySY08, with a molecular weight of about 33 kDa and a specific activity of 1070.2 U/mg, showed the highest activity at 40 °C in phosphate buffer at pH 7.6. The enzyme was stable over a broad pH range (6.0–9.0) and retained about 75% activity after incubation at 40 °C for 2 h. Moreover, the enzyme was active in the absence of salt ions and its activity was enhanced by the addition of NaCl and KCl. AlySY08 resulted in an endo-type alginate lyase that degrades both polyM and polyG blocks, yielding UADs as the main product (81.4% of total products). All these features made AlySY08 a promising candidate for industrial applications in the production of antioxidants from alginate polysaccharides.

Is to report an oligoalginate lyase with high enzymatic activity and high-level expression. Using site-finding PCR and degenerate PCR, a gene (designated oalS17) encoding a new oligoalginate lyase was cloned from Shewanella sp. Kz7 and expressed in Escherichia coli. The gene consisted of 2,292 bp with deduced amino acid size of 763 including a putative signal peptide of 44 amino acid residues belonging to polysaccharide lyase (PL) family 17. The recombinant protein was most active at 50 °C and pH 6.2 in 50 mM phosphate buffer. It degraded alginate more efficiently than polyM and polyG block into a monomeric sugar acid, with a specific activity of 32 U mg⁻¹ toward alginate, 24 U mg⁻¹ toward polyM and 5 U mg⁻¹ toward polyG. With the high-level expression and high enzymatic activity, the recombinant oligoalginate lyase OalS17 could be a potential enzyme for further research on alginate saccharification and biofuels production.