Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation

Mitsubishi Rayon Company, Limited

Ai Hara

Fumiaki Watanabe

Takanori Ambo

Aya Kitahara

Kenjiro Ikuta

Tatsunobu Fukushima

Provided is an improved nitrile hydratase with improved catalytic activity. Also provided are DNA for coding the improved nitrile hydratase, a recombinant vector that contains the DNA, a transformant that contains the recombinant vector, nitrile hydratase acquired from a culture of the transformant, and a method for producing the nitrile hydratase. Also provided is a method for producing an amide compound that uses the culture or a processed product of the culture. The improved nitrile hydratase contains an amino acid sequence represented by SEQ ID NO: 50 (GXXXXDXXR) in a beta subunit, and is characterized in that Xis an amino acid selected from a group comprising cysteine, aspartic acid, glutamic acid, histidine, isoleucine, lysine, methionine, asparagine, proline, glutamine, serine and threonine.

Nitrile hydratase

A probe or a probe set for evaluating influence of ultraviolet ray on the skin, which includes nucleic acids of (a), (b) or (c): (a) Nucleic acids including a base sequence constituting at least one kind of gene selected from the group consisting of GBA, GLB1, CAT, OLFM1, ASAH1, MMP14, MMP17 and COL18A1, (b) Nucleic acids including a base sequence complementary to the nucleic acids of aforesaid (a); (c) Nucleic acids which hybridize with nucleic acids including a base sequence complementary to the nucleic acids of aforesaid (a) or (b) under stringent conditions, and can detect a skin constitution-related gene.

Probe or probe set for evaluating influence of ultraviolet ray on skin and nucleic acid microarray

Improving wild nitrile hydratase enables the provision of a protein which has nitrile hydratase activity and which has further improved heat resistance, amide compound resistance and high temperature accumulation properties. Use protein (A) or (B), (A) being a protein characterized by having nitrile hydratase activity and by including an amino acid sequence in which a specific amino acid residue in an amino acid sequence in wild nitrile hydratase has been substituted by another amino acid residue, and (B) being a protein characterized by having nitrile hydratase activity and by including an amino acid sequence in which one or several amino acid residues in the amino acid sequence of protein (A), other than the abovementioned specific amino acid residue, is deleted, substituted and/or added.

Improving wild nitrile hydratase enables the provision of a protein which has nitrile hydratase activity and which has further improved heat resistance, amide compound resistance and high temperature accumulation properties. Use protein (A) or (B), (A) being a protein characterised by having nitrile hydratase activity and by including an amino acid sequence in which a specific amino acid residue in an amino acid sequence in wild nitrile hydratase has been substituted by another amino acid residue, and (B) being a protein characterised by having nitrile hydratase activity and by including an amino acid sequence in which one or several amino acid residues in the amino acid sequence of protein (A), other than the abovementioned specific amino acid residue, is deleted, substituted and/or added.

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Kanagawa, Japan

Ai Hara