Kikkoman Corporation

Kikkoman Shoyu Co., Ltd.

Yoshio Shirokane

Motoo Nakajima

Kiyoshi Mizusawa

Kazuo Nakamura

A monomethylamine-oxidizing enzyme can be obtained by cultivating in a medium a strain which belongs to Genus Bacillus and has an ability to produce a monomethylamine-oxidizing enzyme. This enzyme exhibits several beneficial properties including the ability to oxidatively deaminate the amino group of monomethylamine to produce formaldehyde, ammonia, and hydrogen peroxide. The enzyme exhibits a high substrate specificity for monomethylamine, ethylamine, and n-proplyamine while showing no substrate specificity for benzylamine, dimethylamine, trimethylamine, ethylenediamine and tryamine. In addition, the enzyme is stable through an elevated temperature range permitting faster reaction rates and therefore a shorter overall quantitative evaluation. Another property includes a low Km value which allows smaller quantities of the enzyme to be employed per sample.

Monomethylamine-oxidizing enzyme

A novel methylguanidine-decomposing enzyme can be obtained by cultivating in a medium a bacterium belonging to Genus Alcaligenes and having an ability to produce a methylguanidine-decomposing enzyme. This methylguanidine-decomposing enzyme has an ability to decompose methylguanidine into methylamine and urea. Its optimum pH range is 10.9-12.3 and its stable pH range is 5.0-10.6.

Growing community of inventors

Noda, Japan

Yoshio Shirokane