• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.31 no.3 s.62
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• pp.540-563
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• 1998

This Study has been carried out to make a recommendation for the next amendment of the Infectious Disease Prevention Act with a specific focus on the kind of notifyable disease. Korean, Japanese, German, U.S, English and French acts on infectious diseases prevention were reviewed, compared with and analized in regards of numbers and kinds of notifyable infectious diseases and their tendency of amendments. An criteria was designed to assess the level of validity of diseases to be designated in the act. Four items, the fatality (greater than 10% or not), the possibility to make a big epidemic, the availability of efficient vaccination and the usefulness of isolation, are used in the assessment. This index is applied to the diseases in Korean and other countries' Infectious Disease Prevention Acts. Results are as follows: 1. The Korean Infectious Disease Preventon Act has a unique way of classifying the notifyable infectious disease, that is, the first, the second and the third class. But the author cannot find the basis of classification. No other countries reviewed have the similar classification. 2. The ten diseases, cholera, plague, yellow fever, diphtheria, typhoid fever, poliomyelitis, rabies, tetanus, malaria, and meningococcal meningitis are designated as the notifyable diseases not only in Korea but also in Japan, Germany, United States, England and france. 3. Thirty seven diseases including small pox, Lassa fever, anthrax, influenza, German measles, Legionellosis, infection with E. coli O157:H7, Q-fever, brucellosis, Lyme disease are designated as legal disease at least one of the above mentioned countries. 4. The Korea has been coped with the change of the infectious disease occurrence for last fifty years in amendment of the Infectious Disease Prevention Act. 5. Japan has a special infectious surveillance system composed of 3,880 clinics throughout the whole country. 6. Germany has classified infectious diseases in five categories which are based on seriousness of disease. Any confirmed death, cases and suspected cases in class I should be reported within 24 hours. But only confirmed death and cases in class II, but not suspected cases, are reportable in Germarny. 7. Plague, bacillary dysentery, pertussis, mumps, Japanese encephaltis and Korean hemorrhagic fevers are diseases with high credits validity index among Korean legal disease. 8. German measles, anthrax, E. coli O157 : H7 infection, Lassa fever, Q-fever, brucellosis are high in validity index among those which are not designated in Korea but designated in other countries. In conclusion, the Korean Infectious Disease Prevention Act has well been coped with the changes of infectious disease occurrence for last fifty years, but the classification basis and the validity of diseases to be designated as legal diseases is worth reevaluating.

• Current Research on Agriculture and Life Sciences
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• v.10
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• pp.125-135
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• 1992

Nine strains of xyl mutants that could not utilize xylose as a carbon source were isolated from E. coli JM109 by the treatment of NTG in order to investigate the regulation of xylose operon and to use recipient cells for the cloning of xylR gene. For the characterization of all isolated mutants, colony colors of all mutants on MacConkey-xylose and MacConkey-xylulose agar plate were observed for the utilization of xylose and xylulose, and the growth level and the activity of xylose isomerase and xylulokinase were determined in need. The isolated xylR/T mutants formed the white colony on MacConkey-xy-lose and MacConkey-xylulose agar plate. They did not detect the activity of xylose isomerase, and the activity of xylose isomerase was not restored in transformants of xylR/T mutant with pEX13 which contained xylA gene. xylR and xylT mutants were classified from xylR/T mutants depending upon the growth level in minimal medium. xylT mutants; DH13, DH121 and DH125 could grow a little in that medium, but xylR mutants; DH10, DH53, and DH60 could not grow that medium.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.11-23
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• 2003

Objectives : The 1990s has seen advances in the conceptualization of self-perceived health status which has important roles for individual health and the quality of life. Many types of standardized questionnaires have been developed with the current wide use of SF-36, NHP, andEuroQol. However, the outcomes of these tools may be different with regard to regional, cultural and emotional backgrounds. The purpose of this study was to trial the development of a Korean Health Profile (KHP 1.0) to measure the self-perceived health stati of Koreans. Methods : The KHP 1.0 was designed on the basis of the Medical Outcome Study Form 36 (SF-36), the Nottingham Health Profile (NHP), and the EuroQOL. It was composed of 9 scales; physical functioning, role limitation-physical, pain, general health, energy, social isolation, sleep, role limitation-emotional, and e-motional health. Self-reported chronic disease conditions, and the Zung's Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS), were also checked for the evaluation of clinical validity. This study was conducted, from December 2000 to January 2001, on 800 middle-aged parents, with four high school students, with 100 retest sets being conducted two weeks later. From the 800 subjects there were 588 complete responses (effective response 73.5%). The reliability of the test-retest results, and the factor analysis on the validity of the KHP 1.0 components, were evaluated using the SPSS (ver 10.0) software. Results : The reliability of the KHP 1.0 was good with Cronbach's alpha (>0.6), test-retest correlation coefficients (>0.5), but with no significant differences from the paired t-test. From the psychometric validity tests, the 9 scales of the KHP 1.0 were divided into two components; physical and mental, and trimmed to the established model with 55% of the total variance, with the exception of role limitation-emotional. The clinical validity on the basis of the comparison for the four characteristic groups; healthy, physical conditions only, mental conditions only, and physical and mental conditions were also good. Conclusions : The KHP 1.0 appears to be a valid measurement tool of self-perceived health stati of Koreans, although there are limitations, i.e. sample size was too small, a limited number of middle-aged subjects, and it was based on unconfirmed diagnoses, etc. Therefore, further study is required to standardize the assessment.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.46-52
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• 2013

After an outbreak of viral disease in an aquafarm, release of virus (es) from infected fish into environmental seawater has been suspected. In the present study, we utilized a negatively charged membrane (HA type) as an efficient method for concentration and detection of fish pathogenic viruses, specifically, megalocytivirus and viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus (VHSV) present in field-collected seawater samples or inoculated into seawater artificially. Positively charged viruses adsorbed onto the negatively charged membrane and were eluted with 1 mM NaOH (pH 10.5) following rinsing with 0.5 mM $H_2SO_4$ (pH 3.0). Megalocytivirus and VHSV particles isolated using anegatively charged HA membrane from seawater inoculated with each virus at a concentration of 10 viral particles/mL were of sufficient quantity to show positive results in atwo-step PCR (or RT two-step PCR); however, despite it being negatively charged, a cellulose acetate (CA) membraneshowed negative results. In quantitative PCR, the detection limits of the HA membrane for megalocytivirus and VHSV in seawater were 1.20E+00 viral particles/mL and 1.22E+01 viralparticles/mL, respectively. The calculated mean recovery yields from 1 L seawater spiked with known concentrations of megalocytivirus and VHSV particles were 28.11% and 23.00%, respectively. The concentrate of a 1-L sample of culturing seawater from the aquatank of flounder suffering from VHSV showed clear positive results in PCR when isolated with an HA, but not a CA, membrane. Thus, viral isolation using an HA membrane is a practical and reliable method for detection of fish pathogenic viruses in seawater.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.157-161
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• 2002

A lactic acid bacteria with ${\beta}$-gal activity was isolated from Kimchi, a traditional fermented vegetable food in Korea. The isolate was identified as a Lactococcus lactis strain and named L. lactis A2. The gene encoding ${\beta}$-gal of L. lactis A2 was cloned as a 5.8 kb PstI fragment. DNA sequencing identified the complete lacA (galactoside acetyltransferase)-lacZ (${\beta}$-galactosidase) genes together with the 3' part of upstream galT (galactose-1-phosphate uridyltransferase), and the 5'region of downstream galE (UDP-galactose-4-epimerase) genes. L. lactis A2 had the same gal/lac operon structure as in L. lactis subsp. lactis 7962. Other genes of the Leloir pathway are most likely to be located in the 5'upstream of the 5.8 kb fragment on the A2 chromosome. Sequences downstream of galE were different from those of L. lactis subsp. lactis 7962.

• IMMUNE NETWORK
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.126-135
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• 2003

Background: One of the important factors in the prognosis of chronic hepatitis B patient is the degree of replication of hepatitis B virus (HBV). It has been known that HBV DNA polymerase plays the essential role in the replication of HBV. HBV DNA polymerase is composed of four domains, TP (Terminal protein), spacer, RT (Reverse transcriptase) and RNaseH. Among these domains, tyrosine, the $65^{th}$ residue of TP is an important residue in protein-priming reaction that initiates reverse transcription. If monoclonal antibody that recognizes around tyrosine residue were selected, it could be applied to further study of HBV replication. Methods: To produce TP-specific scFv (single-chain Fv) by phage display, mice were immunized using synthetic TP-peptide contains $57{\sim}80^{th}$ amino acid residues of TP domain. After isolation of mRNA of heavy-variable region ($V_H$) and light-chain variable region ($V_L$) from the spleen of the immunized mouse, DNA of $V_H$ and $V_L$ were obtained by RT-PCR and joined by a DNA linker encoding peptide (Gly4Ser)3 as a scFv DNA fragments. ScFv DNA fragments were cloned into a phagemid vector. scFv was expressed in E.coli TG1 as a fusion protein with E tag and phage gIII. To select the scFv that has specific affinity to TP-peptide from the phage-antibody library, we used two cycles of panning and colony lift assay. Results: The TP-peptide-specific scFv was isolated by selection process using TP-peptide as an antigen. Selected scFv had 30 kDa of protein size and its nucleotide sequences were analyzed. Indirect- and competitive-ELISA revealed that the selected scFv specifically recognized both TP-peptide and the HBV DNA polymerase. Conclusion: The scFv that recognizes the TP domain of the HBV DNA polymerase was isolated by phage display.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.45 no.3
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• pp.233-238
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• 2009

The expression of Corynebacterium ammoniagenes purF was analyzed by utilizing a plasmid carrying a cat gene fused to the purF promoter region. Adenine and guanine repressed the expression of the purF gene by 20~30% but hypoxanthine did not exert such repressive effect. The expression purF was maximal at the late log phase and remained constant throughout the stationary phase. Promoter $P_{180}$ which was developed in C. glutamicum was also functional in C. ammoniagenes, achieving maximal activity at the late log phase. The promoter outperformed Escherichia coli $P_{tac}$ promoter by 40~50% level. DNA-affinity purification identified a protein which could bind to the promoter region of the purF gene. The protein showed high similarity to the CRP-family transcriptional regulator encoded by NCgl0120 in C. glutamicum. The size of the screened protein agreed with the expected protein size from the ORF NCgl0120. The corresponding gene in C. ammoniagenes encoded a 42 kDa polypeptide composed of 400 amino acids with expected pI of 4.9. The encoded protein showed 14.1% and 15.8% identity with E. coli and Bacillus subtilis PurR, respectively, suggesting that the isolated protein might be a novel type of regulatory protein involved in the regulation of purine metabolism.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.50-56
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• 2001

Thirty-three bacterial and fungal strains were isolated from the rotten soybeans and soybean sprouts to isolate pathogenic microorganisms which cause soybean sprouts rot during soybean sprouts cultivation. In pathogenicity tests of the isolates on soybean sprouts, two isolates(K-17 and K-28) caused soybean sprouts rot and were identified as Erwinia carotovora and Fusarium sp., respectively. To isolate antagonists aganist K-17 and K-28 pathogens, bacteria were isolated from various soybean-cultivated soils and screened by the inhibition zone method. A bacterial isolate(J-232) which inhibited growth of both pathogens was identified as Pseudomonas fluorescens and further examined. The culture filtrate of P. fluorescens J-232 (dilution rate of 500 times) inhibited the growth of Erwinia carotovora K-17 and Fusarium sp. K-28 both on potato dextrose agar medium and on soybean sprouts cultivated in vessel. The development of soybean sprouts rots was observed during cultivation by inoculation of soybean seeds with culture filtrate of both pathogens. The combined inoculation of soybean seeds with culture filtrate of antagonistic bacterium and that of pathogens prevented soybean sprouts rot, and the growth of soybean sprouts was similar to that of control. The soybean sprouts inoculated with antagonists culture filtrate alone did not develop soybean sprouts rot, and the growth of the seedlings was shown to be slightly promoted as compared with that of control.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.664-669
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• 2004

The contamination of Bacillus cereus was investigated in 240 RTE (ready-to-eat) food samples including 118 seafoods, 82 Korean packaged meals and 40 other RTE foods. Many B. cereus presumptive strains were isolated from the enrichment culture in Tryptic Soy Broth (TSB) added polymyxin, followed by selective culture in Mannitol Egg Yolk Polymyxin (MYP) agar and Gram staining. A total of 36 strains (16 in seafoods, 17 in Korean pack-aged meals and 3 in other RTE foods) were identified as B. cereus by the analysis of 61 biochemical tests of the API 50CHB/20E system test and supplementary tests of $\beta$-hemolysis, rhizoid growth, motility and oxidase activity. The 28 strains out of 36 B. cereus isolates produced diarrhoeal enter-otoxin in Brain Heart Infusion (BHI) broth. All isolates were resistant to ampicillin and penicillin antibiotics, and most of them were susceptible to gentamicin, vancomycin, bacitracin, chloram-phenicol, kanamycin and streptomycin. The growth of B. cereus was affected by environmental temperature and incubation time. Culture with temperature under 1$0^{\circ}C$ effectively restricted the growth of B. cereus.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.19 no.8
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• pp.1177-1182
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• 2009

In order to establish in vitro infection model for research of plant pathogen based on tissue softening disease in napa cabbage, eighty independent bacterial strains were isolated from the softened napa cabbage tissues. Eight bacterial isolates were primarily screened with the generation of reproducible tissue softening disease to fresh napa cabbages within 24${\sim}$48 hours after inoculation. Through various microbiological biochemical and morphological examinations, three Gram (-) isolates which harbor independent biological properties were finally chosen, and named as RBI, RB2 and RB6. Collective results obtained from API 20E test and analyses of VITEK 2 COMPACT and nucleotide sequences of 165 rRNA of each isolate proposed that isolates RBI and RB2 are close to the Erwinia carotovora subsp. odorifera, and RB6 is close to the Erwinia carotovora subsp. carotovora. These isolates grew optimally at $30^{\circ}C$ with neutral pH culture condition. The isolates caused softening tissue disease with dose-dependent manner regardless of pre-surface damages of napa cabbage. Minimum dose to cause soft rot disease for RBI, RB2 or RB6 were $8.0{\times}10^8$ CFU/mt $10^9$ CFU/ml or $4.7{\times}10^6$ CFU/ml respectively. These isolates caused tissue softening disease to eggplant, paprika and napa cabbage out of 14 different tested vegetables, indicating that these isolates damages specific plant tissues. The bacterial isolates obtained in this research and in vitro plant infection model will be adapted in the understanding of the mechanism of pathogenesis by plant pathogen.