Display of both N- and C-terminal target fusion proteins on the Aspergillus oryzae cell surface using a chitin-binding module

A novel cell surface display system in Aspergillus oryzae was established by using a chitin-binding module (CBM) from Saccharomyces cerevisiae as an anchor protein. CBM was fused to the N or C terminus of green fluorescent protein (GFP) and the fusion proteins (GFP-CBM and CBM-GFP) were expressed using A. oryzae as a host. Western blotting and fluorescence microscopy analysis showed that both GFP-CBM and CBM-GFP were successfully expressed on the cell surface. In addition, cell surface display of triacylglycerol lipase from A. oryzae (tglA), while retaining its activity, was also successfully demonstrated using CBM as an anchor protein. The activity of tglA was significantly higher when tglA was fused to the C terminus than N terminus of CBM. Together, these results show that CBM used as a first anchor protein enables the fusion of both the N and/or C terminus of a target protein

Intensive endoscopic resection for downstaging of polyp burden in patients with familial adenomatous polyposis (J-FAPP Study III) : a multicenter prospective interventional study

Background Total colectomy is the standard treatment for familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP). Recently, an increasing number of young patients with FAP have requested the postponement of surgery or have refused to undergo surgery. We aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of intensive endoscopic removal for downstaging of polyp burden (IDP) in FAP. Method A single-arm intervention study was conducted at 22 facilities. Participants were patients with FAP, aged ≥ 16 years, who had not undergone colectomy or who had undergone colectomy but had ≥ 10 cm of large intestine remaining. For IDP, colorectal polyps of ≥ 10 mm were removed, followed by polyps of ≥ 5 mm. The primary end point was the presence/absence of colectomy during a 5-year intervention period. Results 222 patients were eligible, of whom 166 had not undergone colectomy, 46 had undergone subtotal colectomy with ileorectal anastomosis, and 10 had undergone partial resection of the large intestine. During the intervention period, five patients (2.3 %, 95 % confidence interval [CI] 0.74 %–5.18 %) underwent colectomy, and three patients died. Completion of the 5-year intervention period without colectomy was confirmed in 150 /166 patients who had not undergone colectomy (90.4 %, 95 %CI 84.8 %–94.4 %) and in 47 /56 patients who had previously undergone colectomy (83.9 %, 95 %CI 71.7 %–92.4 %). Conclusion IDP in patients with mild-to-moderate FAP could have the potential to be a useful means of preventing colorectal cancer without implementing colectomy. However, if the IDP protocol was proposed during a much longer term, it may not preclude the possibility that a large proportion of colectomies may still need to be performed

Analysis of Expressed Sequence Tags from the Fungus Aspergillus oryzae Cultured Under Different Conditions

We performed random sequencing of cDNAs from nine biologically or industrially important cultures of the industrially valuable fungus Aspergillus oryzae to obtain expressed sequence tags (ESTs). Consequently, 21 446 raw ESTs were accumulated and subsequently assembled to 7589 non-redundant consensus sequences (contigs). Among all contigs, 5491 (72.4%) were derived from only a particular culture. These included 4735 (62.4%) singletons, i.e. lone ESTs overlapping with no others. These data showed that consideration of culture grown under various conditions as cDNA sources enabled efficient collection of ESTs. BLAST searches against the public databases showed that 2953 (38.9%) of the EST contigs showed significant similarities to deposited sequences with known functions, 793 (10.5%) were similar to hypothetical proteins, and the remaining 3843 (50.6%) showed no significant similarity to sequences in the databases. Culture-specific contigs were extracted on the basis of the EST frequency normalized by the total number for each culture condition. In addition, contig sequences were compared with sequence sets in eukaryotic orthologous groups (KOGs), and classified into the KOG functional categories