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Barley ( Hordeum vulgare L.) is one of the most ancient crops in the world, and is mainly used in feed, as a grain and as industrial material for beer, medicine and health protection. Its purity can affect beer taste and quality, thus it is important to set up rapid and accurate identification methods for the malting industry. In this study, 27 domestic and imported malt barley varieties were studied. Three pair primers of EcoR I + 3/Mse I + 3 were selected from 64 different primer combinations for DNA-AFLP (amplified fragment length polymorphisms) and an AFLP fingerprinting map of the 27 domestic and imported malt barley varieties was constructed, with the primer combination of E-AGG/M-CAA amplification after polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. With this fingerprinting map, it was possible to distinguish all of the 27 malt barley varieties with 10 specific loci. This could be useful for the identification of malt barley varieties in the beer industry. Copyright © 2015 The Institute of Brewing & Distilling [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transcription factor, AP-1, plays an important role in cellular proliferation, transformation and death. We previously showed that AC3-33 (GenBank name: c3orf33, FLJ31139), significantly inhibited transcriptional activity of AP-1. In this study, we report a method to express and purify AC3-33 in E. coli using glutathione-S-transferase (GST) fusion system. A GST-fusion protein was created by insertion of AC3-33 gene into a pGEX-4T-1 vector. The fusion protein, GST-AC3-33, was expressed in BL21 strain, and purified by GSH-affinity chromatography followed by thrombin cleavage. The digested product was further purified in a GSH-affinity column. After cleavage and purification, the recombinant AC3-33 protein exhibited the expected size of 29 kDa by SDS-PAGE and Western blotting and inhibited transcriptional activity of AP-1 in a dual-luciferase reporter assay. The bioactive recombinant GST-AC3-33, can be used to decipher the physiological and biochemical role of this protein.