• Korean Journal of Veterinary Research
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.419-427
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• 1993

Thirteen strains of Clostridium perfringens were isolated from the pigs with hemorrhagic enteritis. The characteristics of the outbreaks, clinical signs and lesions were examined. The biochemical properties, type of toxin and susceptibility to antimicrobial agents of the isolates were investigated. The results could be summarized as follows ; 1. Almost of the pigs affected with hemorrhagic enteritis, 17 cases examined from 1989 to 1992, were piglets less than 7 day old. 2. The average mortality rate of piglet less than 7 day old affected with hemorragic and necrotic enteritis was 48.5%. 3. The clinical signs of pigs with hemorrhagic enteritis were depression, hemorrhagic diarrhea, anemia and dehydration. Necropsy of the infected pigs showed typical hemorrhage of upper intestine and necrosis of mucosal membrane. 4. The characteristic biochemical properties of the isolates were 2-band hemolysis, positive reaction of reverse CAMP test and formation of LV precipitate in egg yolk medium. 5. The toxin type of the 13 isolates, investigated by mouse inoculation test, was all type C strains of Clostridium perfringens. 6. In susceptibility test to antimicrobial agents, 13 isolates of Clostridium perfringens were highly sensitive to ampicillin, enrofloxacin(Baytril), cephalothin, penicillin and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.50 no.1
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• pp.102-109
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• 2022

Bile acids are essential molecules produced by vertebrates that are involved in several physiological roles, including the uptake of nutrients. Bacterial isolates capable of producing bile acids de novo have been identified and characterized. Such isolates may provide access to novel biochemical pathways suitable for the design of microbial cell factories. Here, we further characterized the ability of Maribacter dokdonensis, Dokdonia donghaensis, and Myroides pelagicus to produce bile acids. Contrary to previous reports, we did not observe de novo production of bile acids by these isolates. Instead, we found that these isolates deconjugated the amino acid moiety of bile acids present in the growth medium used in previous reports. Through genomic analysis, we identified putative bile salt hydrolases, which could be responsible for the different bile acid modifications observed. Our results challenge the hypothesis of de novo microbial bile acid production, while further demonstrating the diverse capacity of bacteria to modify bile acids.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.7-14
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• 2004

Bacteria that are resistant to several different groups of antibiotics have increased during the past few years. The importance of surveillance of antimicrobial resistance is now widely recognized. Unfortunately, this development has not been documented continuously in veterinary medicine in Korea. Therefore, the clinical prevalence and trend of antimicrobial susceptibility of aerobic isolates were investigated in this study. Total 121 isolates of aerobic bacteria were isolated from clinical specimens of dogs and cats at Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital of Seoul National University from May 2001 to October 2002. Among them, the most common isolated species was Staphylococcus spp. (48 isolates), followed by E.coli (26 isolates), Enterococcus spp. (21 isolates), Klebsiella pneumoniae (9 isolates), Streptococcus spp. (6 isolates), Enterobacter cloacae (3 isolates), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (3 isolates), Corynebacterium xerosis (2 isolates), Chryseomonas spp. (2 isolates), and Providencia stuartii (1 isolate). The susceptibility of isolates to antibiotics was determined by the disk diffusion method. Gram-positive bacterial isolates were showed high susceptibilities to amikacin, amoxacillin/clavulanate, ceftazidime, and oxacillin, while Gram-negative bacterial isolates were showed high susceptibilities to amikacin and ceftazidime. Staphylococcus spp. were showed high susceptibilities to amikacin, amoxicillin/clavulanate, ceftazidime, cephalothin, and oxacillin. Streptococcus spp. and E.coli were showed high susceptibilities to amikacin and ceftazidime. Of the 48 staphylococci, seven Methicillin Resistant staphylococci were observed (14.6%), distributed among S. auricularis (1), S. hemolyticus (2), S. sciuri (1), S. saprophyticus (1), S. warneri (2) isolates. One strain of E.coli and one strain of Corynebacterium xerosis were resistant to all antibiotics tested. And, resistance trends between the you 2000 (from July 1999 to September 2000) and 2002 (from May 2001 to October 2002) were compared. Resistance to antibiotics was increased in both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacterial isolates (p＜ 0.05). The resistance rates of Staphylococcus spp., E.coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae to all antibiotics tested were also increased (p＜0.05). This study investigated increasing resistance between the year 2000 and 2002 in Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital of Seoul National University. Surveillance resistance is helpful to alert to veterinarian and select of appropriate therapy. Antimicrobial susceptibility surveillance of isolates should urgently be continued in veterinary medicine.

• The Journal of the Korean Society for Microbiology
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.561-571
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• 1999

Diagnosis of mycobacterial infection is dependent upon the isolation and identification of causative agents. The procedures involved are time consuming and technically demanding. To improve the laborious identification process mycobacterial systematics supported by gene analysis is feasible, being particularly useful for slowly growing or uncultivable mycobacteria. To complement genetic analysis for the differentiation and identification of mycobacterial species, an alternative marker gene, rpoB encoding the ${\beta}$ subunit of RNA polymerase, was investigated. rpoB DNAs (342 bp) were amplified from 52 reference strains of mycobacteria including Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv (ATCC 27294) and clinical isolates by the PCR. The nucleotide sequences were directly determined (306 bp) and aligned using the multiple alignment algorithm in the MegAlign package (DNASTAR) and MEGA program. A phylogenetic tree was constructed with a neighborhood joining method. Comparative sequence analysis of rpoB DNA provided the basis for species differentiation. By being grouped into species-specific clusters with low sequence divergence among strains belonging to same species, all the clinical isolates could be easily identified. Furthermore RFLP analysis enabled rapid identification of clinical isolates.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.187-192
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• 2010

The aim of this study was to compare the results of morphological phenotypic examination and molecular biological method, randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) using clinical isolates from Korean patients infected with dermatophytes. A total of 44 clinical isolates have been collected by Korean Collection Medical Fungi (KCMF) and those were subjected for the RAPD analysis. The results showed that the fungal strains that have RG1 band patterns were identified as Trichophyton rubrum by the neighbour-joining analysis. Additionally, other fungal strains that have RG3 band patterns were identified as Epidermophyton floccosum and RG5 band patterns were identified as Micorsporum gypseum. Even though molecular biological method such as RAPD are not necessary, it might be useful when some strains have similar morphological characteristics or when same species has phenotypic variations. In this study, therefore, we targeted internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions of fungal rDNA, performed RAPD and then compared with morphological phenotypic examination.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.136-139
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• 2014

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is one of the severe nosocomial infectious agents. The traditional diagnostic methods including biochemical test, antibiotic susceptibility test and PCR amplification are time consuming and require much work. The Surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) biosensor is a rapid and powerful tool for analyzing the chemical composition within a single living cell. To identify the biochemical and genetic characterization of clinical MRSA, all isolates from patients were performed with VITEK2 gram positive (GP) bacterial identification and Antibiotic Susceptibility Testing (AST). Virulence genes of MRSA also were identified by DNA based PCR using specific primers. All isolates, which were placed on a gold coated nanochip, were analyzed by a confocal Raman microscopy system. All isolates were identified as S. aureus by biochemical tests. MRSA, which exhibited antibiotic resistance, demonstrated to be positive gene expression of both femA and mecA. Furthermore, Raman shift of S. aureus and MRSA (n=20) was perfectly distinguished by a confocal Raman microscopy system. This novel technique explained that a SERS based confocal Raman microscopy system can selectively isolate MRSA from non-MRSA. The study recommends the SERS technique as a rapid and sensitive method to detect antibiotic resistant S. aureus in a single cell level.

• The Journal of the Korean Society for Microbiology
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.259-266
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• 1987

A total of 129 clinical isolates of Staphylococcus species was characterized by the tests of coagulase production, haemagglutination, mannitol fermentation, DNase production and hemolysis. Ninety-nine out of them showed positive reactions to the tests, therefore they were identified as Staphylococcus aureus. The isolates showing positive reaction in haemagglutination test also showed 100% of tube coagulase positive reaction. The haemagglutination test was a reliable method for identifying Staphylococcus aureus in the clinical laboratory. S. aureus produced stronger hemolysis with human blood agar than with sheep blood agar. Antibiotic resistant S. aureus isolates(S-46, S-112, S-126) had 4 to 6 p]asmid DNA elements. The S-112 strain had 6 plasmid DNA elements(1.8, 2.2, 3.7, $26.3{\sim}50$, and 70 Mdaltons), the S-126 had 4 elements(2.6, 4.2, $4.6{\sim}60Md$), and the S-46 had 1 element(${\sim}100Md$). PPSA strain had 4 plasmid DNA elements(2.5, 4.2, $4.6{\sim}60Md$) and S. aureurs(ATCC) strain contained 9.4, 26.3 and ${\sim}50Md$ plasmid DNA elements.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.2295-2302
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• 2014

The study aims primarily to evaluate the resistance of antibiotics and the prevalence of these enzymes among Escherichia coli the most frequent isolate of Enterobacteriaceae producing Extended-Spectrum ${\beta}$-Lactamase(ESBLs), to differentiate the types of enzymes in these isolates. Total 74(26.2%) Strains of producing ESBLs among the 282 E. coli isolates were isolated from hospitals of Chungcheong area (Daejeon, Chungnam, and Chungbuk) during a 6 month-period from February to July, 2013. 282 E. coli isolates including ESBL shown resistance rates of aztreonam 30.8%, Cefotaxim 30.9%, and Ceftazidime 32.2%, 74 isolates producing ESBLs in E. coli were resistant rates to Aztreonam 58.1%, Cefotaxim 100%, and Ceftazidime 63.5% of ${\beta}$-lactam antibiotics. CTX-M-2 (48 isolates) was the most prevalent type of ESBLs identified. Followed the order of frequency by PER-1 (28 isolates), VEB-1 (26 isolates) and CTX-M-8 (20 isolates), of the 74 isolates, 2 isolates only showed GES-1 in Chungnam province. Accurate identification type of ESBLs would aid in hospital infection control. This would give aid to the physician to prescribe more appropriate antibiotics.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.338-346
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• 2018

Two molecular epidemiologic methods, IS6110 restriction fragment length polymorphism (IS6110-RFLP) and 24-locus mycobacterial interspersed repetitive unit-variable-number tandem repeat (MIRU-VNTR), are used worldwide in studies of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB). Conversely, because of its poor resolution, pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) is not widely used for MTB. In this study, we improved the 24-locus MIRU-VNTR and PFGE protocols and compared the effectiveness of these approaches for the molecular typing of MTB using 75 clinical isolates obtained from a cohort investigation of high-risk populations infected with MTB. The 24-locus MIRU-VNTR method demonstrated superior discriminatory ability, followed by PFGE and IS6110-RFLP. Next, we analyzed six isolates with clear epidemiologic connections; that is, isolates from patients who attended the same school. IS6110-RFLP and PFGE identified these samples as the same type. By contrast, according to MIRU-VNTR, two isolates differed from four other isolates at one locus each; one isolate was identified as Mtub29 and the other as QUB-26. In summary, the 24-locus MIRU-VNTR assay was the most useful molecular typing method among the three methods investigated due to its discriminatory power, short time required, and availability as an epidemiologic investigation tool. PFGE was the second-best method. Compared with the other loci assessed in the 24-locus MIRU-VNTR assay, the Mtub29 and QUB-26 loci appeared to exhibit greater variability during transmission.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.38-44
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• 2006

A simple and easy modification of AST by disk diffusion was tested for the detection of induced clindamycin resistant Staphylococci and their antimicrobial susceptibility at the same time. The incidence of inducible clindamycin resistant staphylococci in blood culture and their MIC characterization at Seoul National University Hospital was analyzed by an AST contained disk approximation test (D-zone test) and Etest, respectively. Of the total 309 staphylococcal isolates, 139 (45%) isolates presented constitutive resistance to ERY and CLI (ERY-R, CLI-R phenotype), and 59 were ERY-I/R and CLI-S phenotypes. Of the 59 isolates, 19 (32%) isolates were inducible resistant to CLI. The incidence was higher in S. aureus (66.7%) than coagulase-negative staphylococci (CNS, 26.0%). Especially, methicillin-resistant staphylococci (MRSA, 100%; MRCNS, 45.5%) presented higher inducibility than methicillin susceptible (MSSA, 50%; MSCNS, 20%). For most of the inducible clindamycin resistant staphylococci (15 of 19 isolates), their ERY MIC were high (>$128_{\mu}g/mL$) and were methicillin resistant. The remaining 4 isolates were methicillin susceptible and their ERY MIC were of intermediate concentrations ($1-4_{\mu}g/mL$). We concluded that suscetibility testing of staphylococci, especially methicillin resistant, should include the D-zone test.