A strain of Burkholderia is Burkholderiaglathei ECU0712, with an accession number of CGMCC NO. 14464. With the strain or its extract as the biocatalyst, thioether is catalyzed to be oxidized asymmetrically to chiral sulfoxide, with significant advantages that the obtained product has a high optical purity, and benefits of a simple reaction system, short preparation time of the catalyst and a high yield of the product.

The present disclosure provides engineered polypeptides having imine reductase activity, polynucleotides encoding the engineered imine reductases, host cells capable of expressing the engineered imine reductases, and methods of using these engineered polypeptides with a range of ketone and amine substrate compounds to prepare secondary and tertiary amine product compounds.

The present invention relates to a process for the preparation of a compound of formula (I) ##STR00001## wherein R.sup.1 is as defined herein, which is useful as an intermediate in the preparation of active pharmaceutical compounds.

Disclosed are recombinant strain of a genus Corynebacterium capable of producing biliverdin IX-alpha (IX) and a method of producing biliverdin IX-alpha using the same. The recombinant strain is capable of synthesizing biliverdin IX-alpha in an environmentally friendly manner using only glucose without the addition of any nitrogen source, thus replacing the synthesis of biliverdin IX-alpha through chemical treatment, which is a conventional synthetic method causing environmental pollution problems.

The present disclosure includes refactored thaxtomin biosynthetic gene clusters including thaxtomin modules including one or more thaxtomin genes such that the expression of the refactored thaxtomin biosynthetic gene cluster produces at least one thaxtomin compound in the absence of thaxtomin-inducing conditions. Also included are genetically engineered Streptomyces bacterium from a non-pathogenic Streptomyces strain comprising an exogenous, refactored thaxtomin biosynthetic gene cluster of the present disclosure, such that the expression of the refactored thaxtomin biosynthetic gene cluster provides the genetically engineered Streptomyces bacterium with the ability to produce at least one thaxtomin compound in the absence of thaxtomin-inducing conditions. The present disclosure also includes methods of producing thaxtomin compounds, analogs, or intermediate with the refactored thaxtomin biosynthetic gene clusters and genetically engineered bacteria of the present disclosure.

The present disclosure relates to the biosynthesis of indigoid dye precursors and their conversion to indigoid dyes. Specifically, the present disclosure relates to methods of using polypeptides to produce indigoid dye precursors from indole feed compounds, and the use of the indigoid dye precursors to produce indigoid dyes.

A Bradyrhizobium monooxygenase, a gene for encoding the monooxygenase, a recombinant expression vector comprising the gene and a recombinant transformant, a method of preparing the monooxygenase by the recombinant expression transformant, and a method of preparing an optically pure chiral sulfoxide by the monooxygenase, in particular to a method of preparing prazole drugs by means of catalyzing the asymmetric oxidation of thioether, a prazole precursor. As compared with other methods of preparing an optically pure sulfoxide, the product produced by the monooxygenase of the present invention as a catalyst has high optical purity, avoids the generation of the byproduct sulfone, and has advantages of mild reaction conditions, simple and convenient operations, easy amplification, etc.

A process for providing phycocyanin from a blue-green algae biomass comprising the steps of forming a slurry of blue-green algae by mechanically mixing the blue-green algae in water to break up filaments of the biomass and incubating the macerated slurry in a container with at least a 1% flocculating agent for a period of time sufficient to separate a blue extract from the slurry. The blue extract is separated and filtered through a filter to obtain a blue filtrate and the blue filtrate is mixed in a container with an ammonium sulfate precipitate for a suitable period of time to obtain supernatant protein separation. The supernatant is syphoned from the container and the settled participate is centrifuged at a rpm ranging from about 3500 rpm to about 4500 rpm for a sufficient time to produce phycocyanin precipitate. The phycocyanin precipitate is spray dried to form a phycocyanin powder which is collected and purified with a citrate and water mixture to obtain a supernatant and phycocyanin residue with the phycocyanin residue being redissolved in water and sprayed to dry into a phycocyanin powder.

This invention relates to a method for dyeing fabrics, yarns and fibers using microorganisms whereby the adsorption of dye-containing microorganisms onto textile fibers is improved using carbon sources above a threshold concentration. Dye molecules contained within the microorganism are released from the microorganism and fixed directly and locally to the textile fibers using a heat treatment step. Said heat treatment also deactivates the carrier microorganisms. Single or multiple microorganism species, and single or multiple dyes produced by said single or multiple microorganism species may create a variety of textile colors. Suitable synthetic dyes may also be added before, during or after microorganisms have produced dyes but before the dye-releasing heat treatment step.

Method for the detection of glutamine and its analogues are provided by the present disclosure. Also provided are methods for measuring the levels of glutamine and its analogues, including diagnostic methods. Further provided are methods that utilise glutamine analogues for the synthesis of coloured pigments and other useful agents. The methods comprise the use of a nonribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS) under conditions to produce an indigoidine or indigoidine-related pigment.