title: Isolation and characterization of a chitinase gene from entomopathogenic fungus Verticillium lecanii.
abstract: Entomopathogenic fungus Verticillium lecanii is a promising whitefly and aphid control agent. Chitinases secreted by this insect pathogen have considerable importance in the biological control of some insect pests. An endochitinase gene Vlchit1 from the fungus was cloned and overexpressed in Escherichia coli. The Vlchit1 gene not only contains an open reading frame (ORF) which encodes a protein of 423 amino acids (aa), but also is interrupted by three short introns. Vlchit1 protein showed that the chitinase Vlchit1 has a (a/b)8 TIM barrel structure. Overexpression test and Enzymatic activity assay indicated that the Vlchit1 is a functional enzyme that can hydrolyze the chitin substrate, so the Vlchit1 gene can service as a useful gene source for genetic manipulation leading to strain improvement of entomopathogenic fungi or constructing new transgenic plants with resistance to various fungal and insects pests.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Biopesticide and Chemical Biology, Ministry of Education, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University , Fuzhou 350002 , China.
authors.forename: Yanping
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Jieru
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pan
authors.forename: Junzhi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Qiu
authors.forename: Xiong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Guan
keywords: Chitinase; Cloning; Homology modeling; Overexpression; Verticillium lecanii
references.citation: J Mol Biol. 1996 Sep 20;262(2):243-57
references.pmid: 8831791
references.citation: J Invertebr Pathol. 2004 Jan;85(1):54-7
references.pmid: 14992861
references.citation: J Bacteriol. 2003 Feb;185(4):1153-60
references.pmid: 12562783
references.citation: Protein Sci. 2000 Mar;9(3):544-51
references.pmid: 10752616
references.citation: Nucleic Acids Res. 2003 Jul 1;31(13):3381-5
references.pmid: 12824332
references.citation: Appl Environ Microbiol. 2005 Jan;71(1):363-70
references.pmid: 15640210
references.citation: Curr Microbiol. 1998 Oct;37(4):221-5
references.pmid: 9732526
references.citation: Anal Biochem. 1987 Apr;162(1):156-9
references.pmid: 2440339
references.citation: Can J Microbiol. 2005 Dec;51(12):1045-55
references.pmid: 16462863
references.citation: J Mol Biol. 2004 Jul 16;340(4):783-95
references.pmid: 15223320