Japan Agency for Marine-earth Science and Technology

Susumu Ito

Koki Horikoshi

Shigeru Deguchi

Yuji Hatada

Ken Takai

Mikiko Tsudome

Jie Lu

Zhi Jun Li

Si Hung Vo

The invention aims to provide a novel alkaline protease having peculiar properties such as high alkali activity, resistance to surfactants and calcium-dependent thermostability and exhibiting excellent performance in highly alkaline detergents, and a gene coding for the amino acid sequence thereof. There is provided an alkaline protease with such properties that an active pH range is from 5 to 13, an optimum pH is approximately 12.6, an optimum temperature is 70&#xb0; C., no activity drop by heating is observed up to 65&#xb0; C. at pH 10 and the optimum temperature and the thermostability are not affected by Caions. Specifically, there is provided, for example, an alkaline protease having an amino acid sequence constituting a mature enzyme as represented by SEQ ID NO: 3 or an amino acid sequence resulting from deletion, substitution, situs inversus arrangement, addition or insertion of a part of amino acids thereof, or derived from The protease cleaves 26 peptide bonds among 29 peptide bonds of acidic insulin B-chain.

High alkaline protease and use thereof

The present invention relates to a solid medium containing as a medium-solidifying component a cellulose gel, in particular a cellulose gel which is a porous cellulose gel structure containing cellulose as the skeletal part and having a cellulose concentration of 0.01% or higher and a porosity of 50% or higher, as well as a process for producing the same. The solid medium of the invention can be obtained by dispersing cellulose in a solvent, especially an aqueous thiocyanate salt solution, stirring and/or heating the dispersion to dissolve the cellulose, subsequently cooling the solution and/or removing the solvent to cause the solution to gel, and permeating nutrients into the resultant cellulose gel. The solid medium usable under a wide range of culture conditions where conventional solid media such as agar medium cannot be used, as well as a method for producing the same is provided.

Solid cellulosic culture medium and process for producing the same

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Yokosuka, Japan

Susumu Ito