An efficient protein expression system for expressing a Bt insecticidal protein. Said protein expression system uses Bla (beta-lactamase) as a fusion tag, so that Bt genes unable to be expressed as soluble proteins are expressed as soluble proteins.

The present invention relates to an isolated polypeptide having beta-lactamase activity and nucleic acid sequences encoding the polypeptide. The isolated polypeptide of the invention is a VIM-2 variant with improved properties such as improved protease stability, stability in intestinal medium, improved activity against one or more antibiotics, improved specific activity and/or improved production in a host cell.

Provided herein are β-lactamase probes that can be used to identify specific types and classes of β-lactamases in a sample, and methods of use thereof.

Phenotypic antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST), the gold-standard diagnostic that indicates whether an antimicrobial will be clinically effective, often suffer the slowest times-to-result for the most resistant pathogens. Here we introduce novel assays to be performed in parallel with standard AST assays that enable rapid, same-shift reporting of AST results for a plurality of pathogens. The assays developed here are further capable of detecting resistance to carbapenems, the most powerful class of beta-lactams commonly used as “last-resort” antimicrobials.

This invention provides, in part, various compositions and methods for protecting the gastrointestinal microbiome from antibiotic disruption from orally administered antibiotics.

Direct detection of mutagenesis in prokaryotes by reversion of an inactivating mutation (reversion mutation assay), producing a quantitative signal for in vivo mutagenesis, may greatly reduce the amount of test chemicals and labor involved in these assays. Further, transcriptional coupling of β-lactamase reversion and GFP, translational fusion between β-lactamase and GFP with stop codon in GFP, and a novel dual reporter to monitor continuous mutagenesis may be used in methods described herein.

The present disclosure relates to compositions of immobilized enzymes on the surface of achromosomal and/or anucleate cells and uses thereof. In particular, the present disclosure provides genetically engineered minicells with enzymes self-assembled on their surface. The immobilized enzymes on the surface of achromosomal and/or anucleate minicells, has agricultural, industrial, and environmental applications due to their improved stability durability and, reusability. Also, provided are methods for producing and purifying enzyme-immobilized minicells.

Provided herein are DNAzymes conjugated to an organic moiety and methods of facilitating entry of DNAzymes into bacteria, utilizing same. Also provided are methods of targeting bacterial target genes, methods of treating or inhibiting the progression of bacterial infections, and methods of increasing susceptibility of bacteria to an antibiotic, using the described DNAzymes, which are optionally capable of silencing at least one target gene of bacteria and/or rendering bacteria susceptible to antibiotic treatment.

The present invention relates to a method of directly detecting, using a mass-spectrometry method, whether a microorganism contained in a sample is resistant to antibiotics, and a kit for detection used therewith. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method and kit for directly detecting an antibiotic hydrolase secreted by a microorganism resistant to antibiotics, thereby directly determining whether the microorganism is resistant to antibiotics. According to the present invention, it is possible to very simply and immediately confirm whether a specific strain is resistant to antibiotics in the field. In particular, a complicated pretreatment process such as proteolysis is not performed, and a complicated identification process of calibrating and then combining the obtained results is not performed. Accordingly, it is possible to realize a method of easily confirming whether antibiotic resistance occurs in just a dozen minutes, compared to a conventional technology in which it takes several days to confirm whether antibiotic resistance occurs, and a simple diagnostic kit used therewith.

The present invention relates to an antibody conjugating peptide including an amino acid having a photoreactive functional group, a physiologically active substance modified with the conjugating peptide, and an antibody conjugate having an antibody linked to the physiologically active substance. When the physiologically active substance modified with the conjugating peptide according to the present invention is linked to the antibody, the conjugation efficiency between the antibody and the physiologically active substance is remarkably improved as compared to that of the conventional art, and thus, the drug may be firmly bound without impairing the specificity of the antibody, thereby making it possible to accelerate commercialization of the antibody conjugate.