• The Journal of the Korean Society for Microbiology
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.47-54
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• 1980

Exoenzymes, protease(P) and elastase(E) produced by Pseudomonas aeruginosa are reported to have close relationship with pathogenicity of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Productibility of exoenzymes P and E were studied and compared in environmental isolates from hospital environments and clinical isolates from various clinical specimens, also, the relationship between their enzyme production and serotype were reviewed. 1. Clinical isolates were typed into nine serotypes A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H and I. Serotype E had the highest incidence of 24%, followed by B with 16.8%, G, 15.1% and C, 9.3%. 2. Environmental isolates were, typed as serotype B, C, E, F, G, H, I, K and M. Serotype I had the highest incidence of 26.6%, followed by C, F and M each incidence of 14.3%. 3. In the typing of the above two groups, serotypes A and D were found only in the clinical isolates and serotypes K, and M were found only in the environmental isolates. Serotypes J and L were found in neither clinical isolates nor environmental isolates. 4. In the distribution of serotypes from various clinical specimens, serotype G among isolates from pus showed incidence of 20.4%, and serotypes E and B were 19.5% separately. Serotype E had incidence of 22.6% and 20.0% in urine and sputa respectively, showing a high rate compared to the other serotypes. 5. The incidence of strains producing both exoenzymes P and E was 77.8% in the preserved strains of clinical isolates and 76.2% in the environmental isolates. There were no significant difference between the two groups. 6. Serotypes A and H, which are preserved strains from clinical isolates showed productibility of both exoenzymes P and E, the other serotypes showed productibility of various combination of exoenzymes. Among the environmental isoaltes, production of both exoenzymes P and E were seen in serotypes E, F, G, H, I and K and no serotype produced only P or E. 7. In ability to produce exoenzymes of isolates from sources of various clinical specimens, strains producing both exoenzymes P and E were found most frequently in pus with incidence rate of 82.0%, followed by 80.0% in sputum and urine. 8. Almost all the fresh strains of clinical isolates were producers of both exoenzymes P and E.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.1-14
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• 1974

The strain of Peptostreptococcus sp. S99 used in this study was isolated from the serous discharge of omphalitis of a 6 days old icteric male infant at the Clinical Laboratory of Microbiology, Seoul National University Hospital on June 9, 1973. The purpose of this study is to clarify the commensalism between Peptostreptococcus sp. and the human bacterial flora isolated from clinical specimens with special references to pH.

• Journal of Veterinary Science
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.59.1-59.13
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• 2021

Background: Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have been identified as promising compounds for consideration as novel antimicrobial agents. Objectives: This study analyzed the efficacy of cecropin B against Haemophilus parasuis isolates through scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) experiments. Results: Cecropin B exhibited broad inhibition activity against 15 standard Haemophilus parasuis (HPS) strains and 5 of the clinical isolates had minimum inhibition concentrations (MICs) ranging from 2 to 16 ㎍/mL. Microelectrophoresis and hexadecane adsorption assays indicated that the more hydrophobic and the higher the isoelectric point (IEP) of the strain, the more sensitive it was to cecropin B. Through SEM, multiple blisters of various shapes and dents on the cell surface were observed. Protrusions and leakage were detected by AFM. Conclusions: Based on the results, cecropin B could inhibit HPS via a pore-forming mechanism by interacting with the cytoplasmic membrane of bacteria. Moreover, as cecropin B concentration increased, the bacteria membrane was more seriously damaged. Thus, cecropin B could be developed as an effective anti-HPS agent for use in clinical applications.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.163-169
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• 2004

Worldwide, tuberculosis remains one of the leading infectious diseases, accounting for nearly 3 million deaths and more than 8 million new cases annually. DNA typing of Mycobacterium tuberculosis is important for the control of tuberculosis, since it can be used to track transmission route of tuberculosis, source of internal laboratory contaminations, and to answer questions on the nature of tuberculosis infections such as reactivation or exogenous reinfection of disease. At present, IS6110-based RFLP is the choice of method for typing large numbers of clinical isolates of M. tuberculosis, since it has the highest resolution power. However, RFLP requires long time, high cost and qualified experts, so only reference level laboratories can use the RFLP technique. In order to have an optional molecular typing method suitable for the clinical settings, this study evaluated the use of one of PCR-based typing methods, IS6110-based outward PCR for typing clinical isolates of M. tuberculosis. In brief, the results from this study showed that IS6110-based RFLP is useful to discriminate diverse clinical isolates of M. tuberculosis as well as to identify clinical isolates that belong to the same family or cluster groups that have been previously classified by RFLP analysis. In addition, the banding profiles resulted from IS6110-based outward PCR seemed to represent genomic characteristics of M. tuberculosis, since strains belong to the K-family generated unique band that is not present in any other strains but present only in the genome of K-family strains. The IS6110-based outward PCR was also shown to be useful with DNAs isolated directly from liquid cultures indicating this method can be suitable for typing M. tuberculosis in clinical settings.

• The Journal of the Korean Society for Microbiology
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.127-131
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• 1986

The mating types and serotypes of 10 clinical isolates of Cryptococcus neoformans have been investigated. Seven isolates were serotype A and three were serotype D and thus they fell in C. neoformans var. neoformans. Mating types of six isolates were found $\alpha$ and two were $\alpha$ but another two isolates were untypable. Enzyme linked immuno-sorbent assay(ELISA) using rabbit hyper-immune serum to cryptococcal polysaccharides was well adapted to the analysis of capsular polysaccharides in sera of the patients with cryptococcal meningitis.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.430-433
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• 2018

Hepatitis B is a major health problem in China. However, little is known about the prevalence of hepatitis B virus (HBV) in Kaifeng, the major urban capital of Henan province, China. We found that HBV prevalence increased with age and that chronic HBV was predominant in adult males in Kaifeng. The HBV prevalence remained unchanged over a 5-year period for all age groups. Alarmingly, 25% of the population remained unvaccinated and potentially susceptible to future HBV infection. HBV immunization and health education initiatives should be carried out in this population to further reduce the overall prevalence of HBV.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.887-892
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• 2015

Uricase is an important microbial enzyme that can be used in the clinical treatment of gout, hyperuricemia, and tumor lysis syndrome. A total of 127 clinical isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa were tested for uricase production. A Pseudomonas strain named Ps43 showed the highest level of native uricase enzyme expression. The open reading frame of the uricase enzyme was amplified from Ps43 and cloned into the expression vector pRSET-B. Uricase was expressed using E. coli BL21 (DE3). The ORF was sequenced and assigned GenBank Accession No. KJ718888. The nucleotide sequence analysis was identical to the coding sequence of uricase gene puuDof P. aeruginosa PAO1. We report the successful expression of P. aeruginosa uricase in Escherichia coli. E. coli showed an induced protein with a molecular mass of about 58 kDa that was confirmed by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and Western blotting. We also established efficient protein purification using the Ni-Sepharose column with activity of the purified enzyme of 2.16 IU and a 2-fold increase in the specific activity of the pure enzyme compared with the crude enzyme.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.31 no.11
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• pp.1481-1489
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• 2021

Early and accurate detection of pathogens is important to improve clinical outcomes of bloodstream infections (BSI), especially in the case of drug-resistant pathogens. In this study, we aimed to develop a culture-independent digital PCR (dPCR) system for multiplex detection of major sepsis-causing gram-negative pathogens and antimicrobial resistance genes using plasma DNA from BSI patients. Our duplex dPCR system successfully detected nine targets (five bacteria-specific targets and four antimicrobial resistance genes) through five reactions within 3 hours. The minimum detection limit was 50 ag of bacterial DNA, suggesting that 1 CFU/ml of bacteria in the blood can be detected. To validate the clinical applicability, cell-free DNA samples from febrile patients were tested with our system and confirmed high consistency with conventional blood culture. This system can support early identification of some drug-resistant gram-negative pathogens, which can help improving treatment outcomes of BSI.

• The Journal of the Korean Society for Microbiology
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• v.35 no.5_6
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• pp.366-366
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• 2000

• The Journal of the Korean Society for Microbiology
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.115-125
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• 1985

Hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) is a debilitating disease of humans caused by Hantaan virus (HV), the prototype member of a newly proposed genus of Bunyaviridae. Studies of HV pathogenesis have been limited by the absence of a well defined model for a virus-induced disease state. In an attempt to devise a model for HV pathogenesis in laboratory rodents, newborn outbred suckling ICR mice were shown to be uniformly susceptible to lethal infection with non- mouse adapted HV by intracerebral (IC), intraperitoneal (IP), intramuscular (IM), and subcutaneous (SC) inoculation routes. Clinical coures, mean time to death, and fatal outcome were age-dependent. With an inoculum of 10 $LD_{50}$, mortality was 100% in mice infected within 72h of birth, but declined to 50% by 7 days. By 2-2.5 weeks, animals developed complete resistance to clinical disease. Virus was consistently detected in serum by day 6 post-infection in IC- and IP- inoculated animals, and reached peak levels of $10^5\;PFU/ml$ by day 8 Mice infected IM and SC showed delays in onset of viremia, but achieved similar titers. Immunofluorescent antibody appeared by 17-18 days, and neutralizing antibody by 15 days, in all experimental groups. Two of 8 inbred mouse strains were identified as resistant to clinical disease : SJL/J and A/J. Manipulation of this model will allow investigation of natural rodent pathogenesis with HV, as well as offer insight into disease mechanisms and therapy of HFRS.