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a single peak (5.76 min) of glycyrrhizin was identified (Fig. 5B).
After 6 h, the peak of glycyrrhizin became small and a new peak
of GAMG at 13.92 min was visible (Fig. 5C). After 15 h, only a single
and bigger peak corresponding to GAMG at 13.89 min was obtained
(Fig. 5D). This result suggests that the purified enzyme possessed
high chemical bond selectivity and could transform GL into GAMG,
without any formation of byproduct of GA. The maximum yield
chromatogram. Wang et al. reported an Aspergillus parasiticus -
glucuronidase which could transform GL into GA, but no GAMG
was produced [31]. The lysosomal -glucuronidase from animal
livers [7] and human intestinal bacteria [16,22,32] could convert
GL to GAMG, but GA was produced as a byproduct. The selective
hydrolysis of GL by -glucuronidases from different sources has
been reported for the production of GAMG. Kuramoto et al. [23]
described a -glucuronidase from yeast C. magnus MG 27 for the
direct conversion of GL into GAMG. Park et al. [10] also isolated a
-glucuronidase from bacteria Streptococcus LJ-22 having capabil-
ity of highly selective hydrolysis of GL. However, this is the first
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4. Conclusion
We have shown that the fungus P. purpurogenum Li-3 produced
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of two identical subunits with a molecular mass of 69.72 kDa. The
activity of the enzyme was enhanced by Mg2+ ions. The enzyme was
quite stable within a large pH and temperature range. The results
suggest that this purified -glucuronidase can be considered as an
appropriate and excellent biocatalyst for the biosynthesis of GAMG
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Acknowledgements
This research was partially funded by grants from National Sci-
ence Foundation of China (Nos. 20976014 and 21176028), Science
Foundation of Beijing (No. 2112035), Doctoral Fund of Ministry of
Education of China (20091101110036 and and 2012331712004),
State Key Basic Research and Development Program (973Pro-
gram, No. 2011CBA00800), National High Technology Research and
Development Program of China (863 Program, No.2012AA02A704)
and Scientific Research Foundation of the Education Department of
Zhejiang Province, China (No.20110410).
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