• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.377-386
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• 1982

This experiment was carried out to elucidate the thermotolerant properties of a thermophilic bacterium which was isolated from soils of the hot springs area and selected for the ${\beta}$-galactosidase production. This bacterium was identified as a strain belong to the genus Thermus. Biochemical and physiological characteristics of this strain were studied, including the investigation of the fatty acid composition of its neutral fats. The results obtained were summarized as follows. 1. Optimal temperature and pH for growth of this strain were $65^{\circ}C$ and pH 6.5 respectively, and it was found to be an absolute thermophilic bacterium which could not grow at the temperature below $43^{\circ}C$. 2. No growth was obtained in the medium which contained more than 1.0% of sodium chloride. 3. The tolerable concentration of antibiotics were 10mg of penicillin G per ml of medium and 0.5mg of chloramphenicol per ml respectively. 4. This strain had auxotrophilic requirements for calcium-pantothenate and pyridoxin-HCl as an essential factor and for niacin as a stimulative factor. 5. Yellow pigment was released into the liquid culture of this strain, which showed maximum absorption at 420 nm. 6. Fatty acid composition of neutral fats of the strain was palmitic acid, 60.20%; lauric acid, 11.80%; myristic acid, 7.56%; behenic acid, 4.25%; capric acid, 1.77%; stearic acid, 2.13%; arachidic acid, 1.53%; and others unidentified, 10.7%.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.23 no.12
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• pp.1471-1476
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• 2013

The present study deals with the immobilization of Kluyveromyces lactis ${\beta}$-galactosidase on a weak ionic exchange resin (Duolite A568) as polymer support. ${\beta}$-Galactosidase was immobilized using the adsorption method. A kinetic study of the immobilized enzyme was performed in a packed-bed reactor. The adsorption of the enzyme followed a typical Freundlich adsorption isotherm. The adsorption parameters of k and n were 14.6 and 1.74, respectively. The initial rates method was used to characterize the kinetic parameters of the free and immobilized enzymes. The Michaelis-Menten constant ($K_m$) for the immobilized enzyme (120 mM) was higher than it was for the free enzyme (79 mM). The effect of competitive inhibition kinetics was studied by changing the concentration of galactose in a recycling packed-bed reactor. The kinetic model with competitive inhibition by galactose was best fitted to the experimental results with $V_m$, $K_m$, and $K_I$ values of 46.3 $mmolmin^{-1}mg^{-1}$, 120 mM, and 24.4 mM, respectively. In a continuous packed-bed reactor, increasing the flow rate of the lactose solution decreased the conversion efficiency of lactose at different input lactose concentrations. Continuous operation of 11 days was conducted to investigate the stability of a long-term operation. The retained activity of the immobilized enzymes was 63% and the half-life of the immobilized enzyme was found to be 15 days.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.17 no.12
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• pp.2046-2055
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• 2007

Wild-type V. vulnificus cannot grow using lactose as the sole carbon source or take up the sugar. However, prolonged culture of this species in media containing lactose as the sole carbon source leads to the generation of a spontaneous lactose-utilizing (LU) mutant. This mutant showed strong ${\beta}$-galactosidase activity, whereas the wild-type strain showed a barely detectable level of the activity. A mutant with a lesion in a gene homologous to the lacZ of E. coli in the bacterium no longer showed ${\beta}$-galactosidase activity or generated spontaneous LU mutants, suggesting that the lacZ homolog is responsible for the catabolism of lactose, but the expression of the gene and genes for transport of lactose is tightly regulated. Genetic analysis of spontaneous LU mutants showed that all the mutations occur in a lacI homolog, which is located downstream to the lacZ and putative ABC-type lac permease genes. Consistent with this, a genomic library clone containing the lad gene, when present in trans, made the spontaneous LU mutants no longer able to utilize lactose as the sole carbon source. Taken together with the observation that excessive amounts of exogenously supplemented possible catabolic products of lactose have negative effects on the growth and survivability of V. vulnificus, we suggest that V. vulnificus has evolved to carry a repressor that tightly regulates the expression of lacZ to keep the intracellular toxic catabolic intermediates at a sublethal level.

• Journal of Microbiology
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.31-36
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• 2001

A cDNA clone encoding the ribosomal protein S20 has been isolated from the Schizosaccharomyces pombe cDNA library by colony hybridization. The insert contained in the original plasmid pYJ10 was transferred intro shuttle vector pRS316 generate plasmid pYJll. The dDNA insert of plasmid pYJll, contains 484 nucleotides and encodes a protein of 118 amino acids with a calculated mass of 13,544 daltons. The deduced amino acid sequence of S. pombe ribosomal protein S20 is very homologous with fruit fly, rat, and budding yeast counterparts. It is also homologous with Xenopus S22 ribosomal protein. S. pombe ribosomal protein S20 appears to be relatively hydruphobic except the C-terminal region. The 728 bp upstream region of the S20 gene was amplified from chromosomal DNA and transferred into the BamHI/EcoRI site of the promoterles $\beta$-galactosidase gene of the vector YEp357R, which resulted in fusion plasmid pYS20. The synthesis of $\beta$-galactosidase from the fusion plasmid appeared to be the highest in the mid-exponential phase. The S. pombe cells with the fusion plasmid grown at 35$\^{C}$ gave lower $\beta$-galactosidase activity than the cells grown at 30$\^{C}$. Computer analysis showed the consensus sequence CAGTCACA in the upstream regions of various ribosomal protein genes in S. pombe, which would be involved in the coordinated expression of small ribosomal proteins.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.129-133
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• 1990

The strain of Nuruk yeat No. 15 (NY-15) which ferments lactose in milk was Isolated from Nuruk and identified as Saccharomyces marxianus according to the API 20C profile index. The lactose hydrolysing ability of NY-15 was similar to that Saccharomyces fragilis ATCC 8583 which has ${\beta}-galactosidase$ activity. Its optimum growth temperature, pH and time for the production of maximum enzyme activity showed $28^{\circ}C$, 4.5 and 28hr, respectively. Galactose as well as sucrose as carbon sources, and urea as nitrogen source Increased the production of enzyme. In order to test the production of alcohol, NY-15 was inoculated in whey medium and whey medium added with sugar. In the former, NY-15 produced 2% alcohol and in the latter, it showed 12% alcohol production. The optimal medium pH for lactose hydrolysis of NY-15 is 4.5, whereas that of Saccharomyces fragilis ATCC 8583 is 3.5

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.18 no.8
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• pp.1357-1363
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• 2008

The $P_{entC}$ promoter of the entCERA operon encoding enzymes for enterobactin biosynthesis in Escherichia coli is tightly regulated by the availability of iron in the culture medium. In iron-rich conditions, the $P_{entC}$ promoter activity is strongly repressed by the global transcription regulator Fur (ferric uptake regulator), which complexes with ferrous ions and binds to the Fur box 19-bp inverted repeat. In this study, we have constructed the expression vector pOS2 containing the $P_{entC}$ promoter and characterized its repression, induction, and modulation by quantifying the expression of the lacZ reporter gene encoding $\beta$-galactosidase. $\beta$-Galactosidase activities of E. coli transformants harboring pOS2-lacZ were highly induced in the presence of divalent metal ion chelators such as 2,2'-dipyridyl and EDTA, and were strongly repressed in the presence of excess iron. It was also shown that the basal level $\beta$-galactosidase expression by the $P_{entC}$ promoter was drastically decreased by incorporating the fur gene into the expression vector. Since the newly developed iron chelator-inducible expression system is efficient and cost-effective, it has wide applications in recombinant protein production.

• Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.7-12
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• 1995

The purpose of this study was the development of promoter for the lacZ' gene. Two heterologous promoter I and II of lacZ' gene were isolated from chromosomal DNA Bam HI fragment of yeast. The size of the promoter I was estimated to be 2.5 kb and ${\beta}-galactosidase$ activity was 124.6 U/mg protein, and the size of the promoter II was 4.0 kb and its ${\beta}-galactosidase$ activity was 168.8 U/mg protein, respectively. The stability of the recombinant YEp plasmid in the transformant was from 52.7 to 67.4% at minimal medium. YIp plasmid was constructed from YEp plasmid, and expressed both in E. coli and yeast. The promoter I aid II iso-lated from yeast chromosomal DNA can be used for promoter of plasmid YEp and YIp.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.524-528
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• 2001

The measurement of radiation response using simple and informative techniques would be of great value in studying the genetic risk following occupational, therapeutic, or accidental exposure to radiation. When patients receive radiation therapy, many suffer from side effects. Since each patient receives a different dose due to different physical conditions, it is important to measure the exact dose of radiation received by each patient to lessen the side effects. Even though several biological dosimetric systems have already been developed, there is no ideal system that can satisfy all the criteria for an idean dosimetric system, especially for low-dose radiation as used in radiation therapy. In this study, an SOS Chromotest of E. coli PQ37 was evaluated as a novel dosimeter for low-dose gamma-rays. E. coli PQ37 was originally developed to screen chemical mutagens using the SOS Chromotest-a colorimtric assay, based on the induction of ${\beta}$-galactosidase ue to DNA damage. The survival fraction of E. coli PQ37 decreased dose-dependently with an increasing dose of cobalt-60 gamma-rays. Also, a good linear correlation was found between the biological damage revealed by the ${\beta}$-galactosidase expression and the doses of gamma-rays. The expression of ${\beta}$-galactosidase activity that responded to low-dose radiation under 1 Gy was $Y=0.404+(0.089{\pm}0.3)D+(-0.018{\pm}0.16)D^2$ (Y, absorbance at 420 nm; D, Dose of irradiation) as calculated using Graph Pad In Plot and Excel. When a rabbit was fed with capsules containing an agar block embdded with E. coli PQ37 showed a linear response to the radiation doses. Accordingly, the results confirm that E. coli PQ37 can be used as a sensitive biological dosimeter fro cobalt-60 gamma-rays. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that a bacterium has been used as a biological dosimeter, especially for low-dose radiation.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.221-229
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• 1995

Effects of carbon sources on zooglan production by Zoogloea ramigera were investigated. The production of zooglan was varied according to the carbon sources used. The largest amount of zooglan was obtained when lactose was used as carbon source and fermentation broth with lactose showed the higher viscosity. The effects of carbon sources were in decreasing order of lactose, glucose, galactose and sucrose. The viscosities of purified zooglan solutions (5g/L) obtained from different carbon sources were measured. When lactose was used, the viscosities of zooglan solutions was quite high and other carbon sources such as glucose and galactose gave little lower viscosities than lactose but sucrose gave very low values. On the other hand, it could be postulated that most of lactose is hydrolyzed by intracellular ${\beta}$-galactosidase.

• BMB Reports
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.379-384
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• 2001

The cDNA encoding ribosomal protein was identified from a cDNA library of Schizosaccharomyces pombe. The nucleotide sequence of the 548 by cDNA clone reveals an open reading frame, which encodes a putative protein of 166 amino acids with a molecular mass of 18.3 kDa. The amino acid sequence of the S. pombe L11 protein is highly homologous with those of rat and fruit, while it is clearly less similar to those of prokaryotic counterparts. The 1,044 by upstream sequence, and the region encoding N-terminal 7 amino acids of the genomic DNA were fused into the promoterless $\beta$-galactosidase gene of the shuttle vector YEp357 in order to generate the fusion plasmid pHY L11. Synthesis of $\beta$-galactosidase from the fusion plasmid varied according to the growth curve. It decreased significantly in the growth-arrested yeast cells that were treated with aluminum chloride and mercuric chloride. However, it was enhanced by treatments with cadmium chloride ($2.5\;{\mu}M$), zinc chloride ($2.5\;{\mu}M$), and hydrogen peroxide (0.5 mM). This indicates that the expression of the L,11 gene could be induced by oxidative stress.