Kaneka Corporation

The Procter Gamble Company

Kanegafuchi Kagaku Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha

Fumio Osakada

Keiji Matsumoto

Yasuyoshi Ueda

Takeshi Fukuchi

Noriko Ogawa

Kenji Miyamoto

Isao Noda

Koichi Kinoshita

Karunakaran Narasimhan

Angella Christine Cearley

Masamichi Takagi

Satoru Yokomizo

Kenneth Yee

Akinori Ohta

Kazuwa Nakao

Yoshifumi Yanagida

Hideo Niwa

Kenji Yamashita

Tetsu Kakutani

Yoshifumi Yanagita

Takaaki Ohara

Takahiro Okazaki

Hiroko Uesugi

Junko Sobajima

Shoichi Ozaki

Masao Tanaka

Hitoshi Shirakawa

Michiteru Yoshida

Tadahiro Edamura

Yoshifumi 1-701 Saususukuea Yanagita

The present invention provides a method to efficiently degrade nucleic acids, which result in a viscosity increase of the solution thereof on the occasion of decomposition or solubilization of microbial cells, in an easy and simple manner in the step of recovering various useful substance produced by a microorganism, and a use thereof. The product recovery method of the present invention make the product recovery from within microbial cells with ease under relatively mild conditions, because, by bringing living microbial cells into contact with a little amount of hypochlorous acid or a salt thereof, autodigestion of nucleic acids is induced and following decomposition of microbial cells or viscosity increase of the solution thereof after dissolution is inhibited. The method of the present invention is particularly preferred in recovering polyhydroxyalkanoates, which are biodegradable polymers, from microbial cells.

Method for degradation of nucleic acids and use thereof

The object of this invention is to provide a method for purifying PHA separated from PHA-containing microbial cells in high purity without incurring any serious decrease in molecular weight. The present invention provides a method for purifying a 3-hydroxyalkanoic acid copolymer produced by a microorganism, which comprises treating an aqueous suspension containing the 3-hydroxyalkanoic acid copolymer separated from a microorganism with a hydrogen peroxide while controlling the pH of said aqueous suspension by adding an alkali either continuously or intermittently.

Method of purifying 3-hyroxyalkanoic acid copolymer

This invention relates to a method of producing polyesters resulting from homopolymerization or copolymerization of a 3-hydroxyalkanoic acid(s) and having biodegradability and good physical properties using yeasts as hosts. By constructing at least one enzyme gene involved in polyester synthesis by adding a DNA coding a peroxisome-targeting signal, introducing an enzyme gene expression cassette containing that gene into yeast, and cultivating the thus-obtained transformant, it becomes possible to cause accumulation of a polyester resulting from homopolymerization or copolymerization of a 3-hydroxyalkanoic acid(s) in yeast cells and recover the polyester from the culture.

Enzyme gene participating in the synthesis of polyester and process for producing polyester using the same

The present invention has an object to provide a method for separating and purifying a PHA without causing a serious decrease of the molecular weight to obtain a highly pure PHA in a high yield, which comprises efficiently removing cell components other than PHA particles from a cultured PHA-containing microbial cell. Another object of the present invention is to provide a method for obtaining an agglomerate of PHA particles. The method for recovering a PHA according to the present invention is a method which comprises efficiently disrupting a cell to recover the PHA by carrying out a physical disruption treatment and an alkali addition at low temperature for an aqueous suspension of the PHA-containing microbial cell, and then treating the PHA with an enzyme and/or a surfactant. Moreover, the particle diameter of the PHA may be enlarged by suspending the PHA in a hydrophilic solvent and/or water, and stirring at a temperature equal to or below the boiling point of said suspension, to agglomerate said PHA.

Method of collecting highly pure polyhydroxyalkanoate from microbial cells

The invention aims at providing a method of producing a poly-3-hydroxyalkanoic acid, which comprises carrying out a physical disruption treatment of a suspension of poly-3-hydroxyalkanoic acid-containing microbial cells with adding an alkali thereto either continuously or intermittently and, thereafter, separating the poly-3-hydroxyalkanoic acid.

Method of separating poly-3-hydroxyalkanoic acid

The present invention provides a method for easily obtaining a biodegradable polyhydroxyalkanoate by a solvent extraction method. A method for producing a polyhydroxyalkanoate crystal comprises mixing a solution of a polyhydroxyalkanoate in a good solvent with a poor solvent at 50 to 130&#xb0; C. to precipitate a polyhydroxyalkanoate.

Method for producing polyhydroxyalkanoate crystal

The present invention provides a method for conveniently obtaining a biodegradable polyhydroxyalkanoate by a solvent extraction method. A method for producing a polyhydroxyalkanoate crystal comprises precipitating a polyhydroxyalkanoate crystal using a monohydric alcohol having 4 to 10 carbon atoms as a extraction solvent, keeping a polyhydroxyalkanoate solution containing 0.1 to 10% by weight of water relative to the total amount of the solution warm at 70&#xb0; C. or higher, and cooling the solution to below 70&#xb0; C.

The present invention relates to a gene coding for a copolyester-synthesizing enzyme, a microorganism which utilizes the gene for the fermentative synthesis of a polyester, and a method of producing a polyester with the aid of the microorganism. More particularly, the present invention relates to a gene which functions in a host organism and, by an enzyme, synthesizes a plastic-like polymer degradable under the action of microorganisms in the natural environment (the soil, river or sea). The present invention also, more particularly, relates to a transformant derived from the host organism by transformation with the gene and having an improved ability to fermentatively synthesize a plastic-like polymer, and a method of producing a copolyester with the aid of the transformant.

Transformant and process for producing polyester by using the same

A diagnostic drug and a diagnostic kit for autoimmune diseases including at least one of a polypeptide selected from an HMG-1 family, a polypeptide selected from an HMG-2 family, a fragment thereof which is reactable with an antibody of an autoimmune disease patient, and a method for detecting an antibody of an autoimmune disease patient using the same are provided.

Diagnostic drugs for autoimmune diseases

A sheep LFA-3 protein and derivertires thereof, and derivertives of a human LFA-3 protein, gene coding for the proteins, and processes for preparing the proteins. Said proteins have high affinity for human T-cells.

Cell adhesion protein, gene coding for the same, process for preparing

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Okayama, Japan

Fumio Osakada