• Journal of Microbiology
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.80-87
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• 2000

The nucleotide sequence of the luxC gene coding for lux-specific fatty acyl-CoA reductase and the upstream DNA (325bp)of the structural gene from bioluminescent bacterium, Photobacterium phosphoreum, has been deternubed. An open reading frame extending for more than 20 codons in 325 bp DNA upstream of luxC was not present in both directions. The lux gene can be translated into a polypeptide of 54 kDa and the amino acid sequences of lux specific reductases of P. phosphoreum shares 80, 65, 58, and 62% identity with those of the Photobacterium leiognathi, Vibrio fischeri, Vibrio harveyi, and Xehnorhabdus luminescenens reductases, respectively. Analyses of codon usage, showing that a high frequency (2.3%) of the isoleucine codon, AUA, in the luxC gene compared to that found in Escherichia coli genes (0.2%) and its absence in the luxA and B genes, suggested that the AUA codon may play a modulator role in the expression of lux gene in E. coli. The structural genes (luxC, D, A, B, E) of the P. phosphoreum coding for luciferase (${\alpha}$,${\beta}$) and fatty acid reductase (r, s, t) polypeptides can be expressed exclusively in E. coli under the T7 phage RNA polymerase/promoter system and identificationof the [35S]methionine labelled polypeptide products. The degree of expression of lux genes in analyses of codon usage. High expression of the luxC gene could only be accomplished in a mutant E. coli 43R. Even in crude extracts, the acylated acyl-CoA reductase intermediate as well as acyl-CoA reductrase activities could be readily detected.

• BMB Reports
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.254-257
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• 1998

The gshI gene from the Escherichia coli K-12 strain codes for ${\gamma}-glutamylcysteine$ synthetase which mediates the rate-limiting step of glutathione biosynthesis. The isolated gshI gene from E. coli K-12 has an unusual translation initiation codon, UUG. The 494th amino acid is Ala rather than Gly which was found in a mutant strain E. coli B. In order to improve the translational rate of the gshI gene of E. coli K-12, the initiation codon, UUG, was changed to the usual AUG codon by the site-specific mutagenesis. This change has resulted in a 53% increase of ${\gamma}-glutamylcysteine$ synthetase activity. The enzyme activity was also improved by replacing $Ala^{494}$ with Val (A494V) or Leu (A494L). The replacement of $Ser^{495}$ with Thr (S495T) also resulted in a 62% increase of the enzyme activity. Therefore, the specific activity of ${\gamma}-glutamylcysteine$ synthetase was increased with the increasing chain length of the aliphathic amino acid at the site of the 494th amino acid (Ala<$Val{\leq}Leu$).

• BMB Reports
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.502-508
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• 2001

A cDNA, encoding the human growth hormone (hGH), was synthesized based on the known 191 amino acid sequence. Its codon usage was optimized for a high level expression in Escherichia coli. Unique restriction sites were incorporated throughout the gene to facilitate mutagenesis in further studies. To minimize an initiation translation problem, a 624-bp cassette that contained a ribosome binding site and a start codon were fused to the hGH-coding sequence that was flanked between the EcoRI and HindIII sites. The whole fragment was synthesized by an overlapped extension of eight long synthetic oligonucleotides. The four-short duplexes of DNA, which were first formed by annealing and filling-in with a Klenow fragment, were assembled to form a complete hGH gene. The hGH was cloned and expressed successfully using a pET17b plasmid that contained the T7 promoter. Recombinant hGH yielded as much as 20% of the total cellular proteins. However, the majority of the protein was in the form of insoluble inclusion bodies. N-terminal amino acid sequencing also showed that the hGH produced in E. coli contained formyl-methionine. This study provides a useful model for synthesis of the gene of interest and production of recombinant proteins in E. coli.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.244-253
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• 2017

Reversible DNA watermarking is capable of continuous DNA storage and forgery prevention, and has the advantage of being able to analyze biological mutation processes by external watermarking by iterative process of concealment and restoration. In this paper, we propose a reversible DNA watermarking method based on histogram multiple shifting of noncoding DNA sequence that can prevent false start codon, maintain original sequence length, maintain high watermark capacity without biologic mutation. The proposed method transforms the non-coding region DNA sequence to the n-th code coefficients and embeds the multiple bits of the n-th code coefficients by the non-recursive histogram multiple shifting method. The multi-bit embedding process prevents the false start codon generation through comparison search between adjacent concealed nucleotide sequences. From the experimental results, it was confirmed that the proposed method has higher watermark capacity of 0.004-0.382 bpn than the conventional method and has higher watermark capacity than the additional data. Also, it was confirmed that false start codon was not generated unlike the conventional method.

• YAKHAK HOEJI
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• v.60 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2016

The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of quinolone resistant E. coli from retail meat and to characterize the resistant determinants. Determination of minimum inhibitory concentration, the sequence analysis of gyrA, gyrB, parC, and parE quinolone resistance determining regions (QRDR), the presences of plasmid mediated quinolone resistance (PMQR) and the expression of efflux pump genes were investigated. Of the total 277 retail meat samples, 67 coli form bacteria were isolated. 15 of 67 isolates showed nalidixic acid resistance and 7 of 15 nalidixic acid resistant isolates were also resistant to ciprofloxacin, moxifloxacin and levofloxacin. 11 of 15 nalidixic acid resistant strains were isolated from chicken, 2 of 15 were isolated from beef and 2 of 15 were isolated from pork samples. 11 of 15 nalidixic acid resistant strains have single mutation at codon 87 (D87N or D87G) in gyrA, 2 of 11 gyrA mutants have double mutations at codon 86 and 87 (L86A and L87I) in parC with mutations at codon 434+445+465 or 429 in gyrB. 2 of 15 resistant isolates harbored qnrS, a PMQR determinant. Over expression of the acrB gene, efflux pump gene (3.93~16.53 fold), was observed in 10 of 15 resistant isolates.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.33 no.11
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• pp.1412-1419
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• 2023

Retroviral integration into ancient vertebrate genomes left traces that can shed light on the early history of viruses. In this study, we explored the early evolution of retroviruses by isolating nine Spuma endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) and one Epsilon ERV from the genomes of Agnatha and Chondrichthyes. Phylogenetic analysis of protein sequences revealed a striking pattern of co-evolution between jawless fish ERV and their host, while shark ERV underwent ancient cross-class viral transmission with jawless fish, ray-finned fish, and amphibians. Nucleotide sequence analysis showed that jawless fish ERV emerged in the Palaeozoic period, relatively later than ray-finned fish ERV. Moreover, codon analysis suggested that the jawless fish ERV employed an infection strategy that mimics the host codon. The genealogical diversity of ERVs in the jawless fish genome highlights the importance of studying different viral species. Overall, our findings provide valuable insights into the evolution of retroviruses and their interactions with their hosts.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.455-463
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• 2005

Resistance to isoniazid (INH), which is one of the most important drugs in Mycobacterium tuberculosis chemotherapy, has been associated with mutations in genes encoding the mycobacterial catalse-peroxidase (katG), the enoyl acyl carrier protein (ACP) reductase (inhA), alkyl hydroperoxide reductase (ahpC), beta-ketoacyl acyl carrier protein synthase (kasA), and NADH dehydrogenase (ndh). In this study, we examined INH-resistance related genes in 50 INH-resistant and 24 INH-susceptible isolates by PCR-sequence analysis. In brief, mutations at the katG gene were found at codon 315 alone (2/50), at codon 463 alone (19/50), and both at 315 and 463 (29/50). However, while mutations at codon 315 were only detected in INH-resistant isolates, mutations at codon 463 were also detected in INH-susceptible isolates indicating mutations at 463 alone do not seem to confer resistance to INH. Similar to the case of katG 463, some of inhA mutations were also found among INH-susceptible isolates. For example, whereas mutations at 8 upstream of the start codon (UPS) and 15 UPS of the inhA gene were detected only in INH-resistant isolates, mutations at 101, 115, and 125 UPS were detected only in INH-susceptible isolates. Many different kinds of mutations were detected in INH­resistant isolates at ahpC, oxyR gene, and intergenic region of the oxyR-ahpC genes. Howerver, the mutations were not found oxyR and the intergenic regions in INH-susceptible isolates. No mutations were found at either kasA or at ndh gene among INH-resistant isolates. In conclusion, some of mutations such as katG 315, inhA promotor region, and oxyR-ahpC seem to be strongly related to INH-resistance. Currently we are developing a molecular diagnostic method based on these results.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.465-471
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• 2005

Ofloxacin has antimycobacterial activity that possibly contributes a pivotal role in the second-line drug regimens that are used for the treatment of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. However, in some communities, the resistance rate of Mycobacterium tuberculosis to this agent is surging. Therefore, a rapid and accurate method that can be used to determine the resistance of M tuberculosis to the ofloxacin can be very useful for effective treatment of the patients. As an effort to develop such a method, this study was set up to reveal general types of mutations that are related to ofloxacin resistance of M tuberculosis. From previous studies, it has been well known that ofloxacin resistance is associated with mutations in a gene encoding the gyrase A subunit protein. In this study, we obtained 43 ofloxacin-resistant and 50 ofloxacin-susceptible M tuberculosis clinical isolates from Masan National TB Hospital, and sequences of DNA fragment of 320 bp, region of gyrA corresponding to the ofloxacin resistance-determining region were analyzed. In brief, the results showed that a total of seven mutation types were found at gyrA. Theses mutations were all clustered within nucleotides 2574 to 2586 of the gyrA gene (codons 88 to 94). Codon 94 was the most frequently substituted site. Twenty-four of the 43 isolates had mutations at this position resulting in a total of five different types of amino acid changes $(Asp{\to}Ala,\;Asp{\to}Gly,\;Asp{\to}His,\;Asp{\to}Tyr,\;and\;Asp{\to}Asn)$. Five isolates contained a mutation at codon 90 resulting $Ala{\to}Val$ change. Four isolates had mutations at codon 91 causing a $Ser{\to}Pro$ change at this site. Two isolates contained a mutation at codon 88 and each of them resulted in different types of amino acid changes $(Gly{\to}Cys,\;Gly{\to}Ala)$. On the other hand, polymorphic site at codon 95 was found in both ofloxacin-resistant and ofloxacin-susceptible isolates. From these results, we concluded that the rate of mutations present in gyrA among ofloxacin-resistant M. tuberculosis in Korea is similar to the general rates of mutations found throughout the world. Subsequently, an oligonucleotide probe was designed based on the results of sequence analysis and was used to develop a dot blot hybridization assay system to determine ofloxacin-resistance of M tuberculosis. To evaluate this probe, dot-blot hybridization was carried out using other 57 clinical isolates, and the results showed that the dot-blot hybridization assay is good for detecting sequence alterations atgyrA gene.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.48 no.11
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• pp.1252-1255
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• 2005

Abnormalities in the levels of thyroxine-binding globulin (TBG) are not associated with clinical disease and they do not require treatment. Congenital TBG deficiency is inherited in an X-linked manner. To date, some complete and partial TBG variants and one polymorphism have been identified by analysis of the TBG gene. Two male neonates were referred to us because of their low $T_4$ levels that were noted on the neonatal screening test. They showed normal levels of free $T_4$ and TSH. Their serum TBG was not detectable and those values of their parents were within the normal ranges. The genomic DNA was extracted from their white blood cells and the four coding exons of the TBG gene were amplified by using polymerase chain reaction. Sequencing of the four coding regions and all the intron/exon junctions revealed a single nucleotide deletion of the first base of the codon 352 of the mature protein in both of the neonates. This mutation resulted in a frameshift and a premature stop codon (TGA) 374. Their mothers were shown to be heterozygotes. We detected a single nucleotide deletion resulting in a frameshift in two male Korean neonates who had complete TBG deficiency.

• Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.36 no.6
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• pp.517-524
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• 1993

To characterize glutelins, the most abundant storage protein in rice, 13 complete coding sequences of glutelin genes from the database were analyzed. According to the phylogenic analysis, these genes could be classified into 5 groups, Group I to V. The degrees of homology were calculated to be in the range of 90 to 60%, but the patterns of hydrophobicity were similar in all the groups. Also, each group was found to have similar amino acid composition with variations in lysine content from 2.5 to 3.6% due to the point mutation of arginine to lysine. The isoelectric points of mature proteins and their basic chains of all the groups showed the value of about 9.0 and 10.0, respectively, while the isoelectric points of acidic chains in these groups showed the distinct value of 6.6, 6.7, 7.2, 8.4 and 7.9. The plot of the fraction of G+C at synonimous site in codons (GC3s) against effective codon numbers suggest no major difference in translational efficiency in the expression of glutelin multigenes.