• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• 제18권3호
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• pp.271-279
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• 2010

Streptococcus pneumoniae is the major pathogen that frequently causes serious infections in children, the elderly and immunocompromised patients. S. pneumoniae is known to produce reactive oxygen species (ROS) and S. pneumoniae-produced ROS is considered to play a role in pneumococci pathogenesis. SIGN-R1 is the principal receptor of capsular polysaccharides (CPSs) of S. pneumoniae. However, there is a considerable lack of knowledge about the protective role of SIGN-R1 against S. pneumoniae-produced ROS in SIGN-$R1^+$ macrophages. While investigating the protective role of SIGN-R1 against ROS, we found that SIGN-R1 intimately bound to peroxiredoxin-1 (Prx-1), one of small antioxidant proteins in vitro and in vivo. This interaction was increased with ROS generation which was produced by stimulating SIGN-R1 with dextran, a polysaccharide ligand of SIGN-R1. Also, SIGN-R1 crosslinking with 22D1 anti-SIGN-R1 antibody increased Prx-1 in vitro or in vivo. These results suggested that SIGN-R1 stimulation with CPSs of S. pneumoniae increase the expression level of Prx-1 through ROS and its subsequent interaction to SIGN-R1, providing an important antioxidant role for the host protection against S. pneumoniae.

• 한국균학회지
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• 제29권1호
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• pp.9-14
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• 2001

Colletotrichum spp.는 광범위한 기주 범위를 갖는 다범성 균으로 각종 작물에 피해를 야기시키는 중요한 식물병원 진균이다. 최근 국내에서 널리 재배되고 있는 단감, 사과, 복숭아, 포도 등에 탄저병이 발생하여 많은 경제적 손실을 초래하고 있다. 탄저병 병원균의 경우 기존에는 주로 형태적 특성이나 배지상에서의 특성, 기주에 대한 병원성의 차이에 의존하여 분류를 해 왔다. 그러나 최근에는 병원균의 분류에 있어 문제점을 해결하기 위하여 분자생물학적 방법을 이용하고 있다. 최근에는 RAPD(ramdomly amplified polymorphic DNAs)와 RFLP(restriction fragment length polymorphism)의 장점만을 살린 AFLP(amplified fragment length polymorphism)기법이 유연관계 분석에 있어서 각광을 받고 있고 rDNA부위를 증폭하여 제한효소를 이용하여 다양성을 보는 방법이 많이 이용되고 있다. 이에 본 실험에서는 AFLP 기법 이용하여 단감나무에 탄저병을 일으키는 균들간에 유연관계를 밝혔다. AFLP결과에서 variation이 심하여 각각의 특징적인 band를 검출할 수 있었다. 특히 단감나무에 병해를 일으키는 탄저병 병원균 2개의 종이 복합적으로 관여하는 사실을 알 수 있었다.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• 제25권4호
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• pp.333-343
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• 2009

Here, we show that an endophytic bacterial strain, Enterobacter asburiae B1 exhibits the ability to elicit ISR in cucumber, tobacco and Arabidopsis thaliana. This indicates that strain B1 has a widespread ability to elicit ISR on various host plants. In this study, E. asburiae strain B1 did not show antifungal activity against tested major fungal pathogens, Colletotrichum orbiculare, Botrytis cinerea, Phytophthora capsici, Rhizoctonia solani, and Fusarium oxysporum. Moreover, the siderophore production by E. asburiae strain B1 was observed under in vitro condition. In greenhouse experiments, the root treatment of strain B1 significantly reduced disease severity of cucumber anthracnose caused by fungal pathogen C. orbiculare compared to nontreated control plants. By root treatment of strain B1 more than 50% disease control against anthracnose on cucumber was observed in all greenhouse experiments. Simultaneously, under the greenhouse condition, the soil drench of strain B1 and a chemical inducer benzothiadiazole (BTH) to tobacco plants induced GUS activity which is linked with activation of PR promoter gene. Furthermore, in Arabidopsis thaliana plants the soil drench of strain B1 induced the defense gene expression of PR1 and PDF1.2 related to salicylic acid and jasmonic acid/ethylene signaling pathways, respectively. In this study, for the main focus on root colonization by strain B1 associated with defense responses, bacterial cells of strain B1 was tagged with the gfp gene encoding the green fluorescent protein in order to determine the colonization pattern of strain B1 in cucumber. The gfp-tagged B1 cells were found on root surface and internal colonization in root, stem, and leaf. In addition to this, the scanning electron microscopy observation showed that E. asburiae strain B1 was able to colonized cucumber root surface.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• 제36권5호
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• pp.440-449
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• 2020

The purpose of this study was to analyze the genetic and pathogenic characteristics of Ralstonia pseudosolanacearum in roses in Korea, and to examine the similarities and differences between Korean isolates and the first-reported European strains. Between 2017 and 2019, seventeen isolates from rose plants were identified as R. pseudosolanacearum using Ralstonia-specific primers. All 17 isolates were identified as race 1 using race-specific primers, and were confirmed as biovar 3 due to their ability to utilize carbon sources. Multiplex PCR using phylotype discriminating specific primers identified the 17 isolates as phylotype I. Sequevar comparison with reference sequevars using the sequences of the egl, mutS, and fliC genes, and only the egl gene, revealed that the strains evaluated in this study corresponded to sequevar I-33. The pathogenicity in roses differed depending on the rose cultivars. The different methods used for the genetic characterization of R. pseudosolanacearum indicate that the 17 rose bacterial wilt isolates had the same genetic characteristics. The lack of genetic variation in these isolates indicates their recent introduction from other countries (likely European countries). Therefore, appropriate quarantine and control measures should be taken in order to avoid further increases in the pathogenicity and/or secondary host range of R. pseudosolanacearum through genetic mutation.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• 제15권6호
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• pp.1197-1206
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• 2005

Vibrio vulnificus is an opportunistic pathogen that causes a septicemia and expresses numerous virulence factors, in which luxS and smcR are genes encoding for components responsible for quorum-sensing regulation. In the present study, null mutants were constructed with lesions in each or both of these two genes from the V. vulnificus Vv$\Delta$Z strain, which is a lacZ$^{-}$ and chloramphenicol/streptomycin-resistant derivative of the wild-type ATCC29307 strain, and their phenotypes related to virulence were compared with those of the parental cells. $LD_{50}$ and histopathological findings of luxS-, smcR-, or luxS- smcR- deficient mutant were not different from those of the parent strain, a lacZ-deficient streptomycin-resistant strain in mice. However, time of death in mice was delayed, and numbers of bacteria survived in bloodstream after intraperitoneal injection in mice were decreased by mutation, especially luxS and smcR double mutant (VvSR$\Delta$ZSR). These phenomena were supported by increased serum sensitivity and delayed bacterial proliferation in both murine blood and iron-restricted medium. These results suggest that the luxS and luxR homologous genes in V. vulnificus could playa role in bacterial survival in host by enhancing proliferation and adjusting to changed environment.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• 제19권8호
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• pp.765-773
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• 2009

Edwardsiella tarda is a pathogen with a broad host range that includes human and animals. The E. tarda hemolysin (Eth) system, which comprises EthA and EthB, is a noted virulence element that is widely distributed in pathogenic isolates of E. tarda. Previous study has shown that the expression of ethB is regulated by iron, which suggests the possibility that the ferric uptake regulator (Fur) is involved in the regulation of ethB. The work presented in this report supports the previous findings and demonstrates that ethB expression was decreased under conditions when the E. tarda Fur ($Fur_{Et}$) was overproduced, and enhanced when $Fur_{Et}$ was inactivated. We also identified a second ethB regulator, EthR, which is a transcription regulator of the GntR family. EthR represses ethB expression by direct interaction with the ethB promoter region. In addition to ethB, EthR also modulates, but positively, luxS expression and AI-2 production by binding to the luxS promoter region. The expression of ethR itself is subject to negative autoregulation; interference with this regulation by overexpressing ethR during the process of infection caused (i) drastic changes in ethB and luxS expressions, (ii) vitiation in the tissue dissemination and survival ability of the bacterium, and (iii) significant attenuation of the overall bacterial virulence. These results not only provide new insights into the regulation mechanisms of the Eth hemolysin and LuxS/AI-2 quorum sensing systems but also highlight the importance of these systems in bacterial virulence.

• Reproductive and Developmental Biology
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• 제39권4호
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• pp.105-115
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• 2015

Toll-like receptor 7 (TLR7) is critical for the triggering of innate immune response by recognizing the conserved molecular patterns of single-stranded RNA (ssRNA) viruses and mediated antigenic adaptive immunity. To understand how TLR7 distinguish pathogen-derived molecular patterns from the host self, it is essential to be able to identify TLR7 receptor interaction interfaces, such as active sites or R848-agonist binding sites. The functional interfaces of TLR7 can serve as targets for structure-based drug design in studying the TLR7 receptor's structure-function relationship. In contrast to mammalian TLR7, chicken TLR7 (chTLR7) is unknown for its important biological function. Therefore, it has been targeted to mediate contrasting evolutionary patterns of positive selection into non-synonymous SNPs across eleven species using TLR7 conservation patterns (evolutionary conserved and class-specific trace residues), where protein sequence differences to the TLR7 receptors of interest record mutation that have passed positive section across the species. In this study, we characterized the Lys609 residue on chTLR7-ECD homodimer interfaces to reflect the current tendency of evolving positive selection to be transfer into a stabilization direction of the R848-agonist/chTLR7-ECDs complex under the phylogenetically variable position across species and we suggest a potential indicator for contrasting evolutionary patterns of both the species TLR-ECDs.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• 제28권4호
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• pp.510-519
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• 2018

Synbiotics are a combination of probiotics and prebiotics, which lead to synergistic benefits in host welfare. Probiotics have been used as an alternative to antibiotics. Among the probiotics, Pediococcus acidilactici (PA) has shown excellent antimicrobial activity against Salmonella Gallinarum (SG) as a major poultry pathogen and has improved the production performances of animals. Inulin is widely used as a prebiotic for the improvement of animal health and growth. The main aim of this study was to investigate the antimicrobial activity of inulin nanoparticle (IN)-internalized PA encapsulated into alginate/chitosan/alginate (ACA) microcapsules (MCs) for future in vivo application. The prepared phthalyl INs (PINs) were characterized by DLS and FE-SEM. The contents of phthal groups in the PINs were estimated by $^1H-NMR$ measurement as 25.1 mol.-%. The sizes of the PINs measured by DLS were approximately 203 nm. Internalization into PA was confirmed by confocal microscopy and flow cytometry. The antimicrobial activity of PIN-internalized probiotics encapsulated into ACA MCs was measured by coculture antimicrobial assays on SG. PIN-internalized probiotics had a higher antimicrobial ability than that of ACA MCs loaded with PA/inulin or PA. Interestingly, when PINs were treated with PA and encapsulated into ACA MCs, as a natural antimicrobial peptide, pediocin was produced much more in the culture medium compared with other groups with inulin-loaded ACA MCs and PA encapsulated into ACA MCs.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• 제24권12호
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• pp.1609-1621
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• 2014

The plant pathogen Burkholderia gladioli, which has a broad host range that includes rice and onion, causes bacterial panicle blight and sheath rot. Based on the complete genome sequence of B. gladioli BSR3 isolated from infected rice sheaths, the genome of B. gladioli BSR3 contains the luxI/luxR family of genes. Members of this family encode N-acyl-homoserine lactone (AHL) quorum sensing (QS) signal synthase and the LuxR-family AHL signal receptor, which are similar to B. glumae BGR1. In B. glumae, QS has been shown to play pivotal roles in many bacterial behaviors. In this study, we compared the QS-dependent gene expression between B. gladioli BSR3 and a QS-defective B. gladioli BSR3 mutant in two different culture states (10 and 24 h after incubation, corresponding to an exponential phase and a stationary phase) using RNA sequencing (RNA-seq). RNA-seq analyses including gene ontology and pathway enrichment revealed that the B. gladioli BSR3 QS system regulates genes related to motility, toxin production, and oxalogenesis, which were previously reported in B. glumae. Moreover, the uncharacterized polyketide biosynthesis is activated by QS, which was not detected in B. glumae. Thus, we observed not only common QS-dependent genes between B. glumae BGR1 and B. gladioli BSR3, but also unique QS-dependent genes in B. gladioli BSR3.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• 제20권2호
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• pp.281-286
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• 2010

A Pseudomonas fluorescens strain was isolated and found to show antagonistic activity against phytopathogenic fungi and to possess a gene responsible for production of antibiotic 2,4-diacetylphloroglucinol. For the extension of biocontrol range, a gene for an Androetonus australis Hector insect toxin 1 (AaHIT1), one of the most known toxic insect-selective peptides, was designed and synthesized according to the preferred codon usage of Pseudomonas fluorescens, cloned, and transformed into the strain by pSUP106 vector, a broad-host-range plasmid. Bioassays indicated that the engineered strain was able to produce AaHIT1 with insecticidal activity, and at the same time retain the activity against plant pathogen. The experiments for nonplanted soil and rhizosphere colonization showed that, similar to the population of the wild-type strain, that of the engineered strain remained relatively constant in the first 10 days, and the subsequent 50 days, suggesting that AaHIT1 expression in the bacterial cell does not substantially impair its long-term colonization. It is first reported that a Pseudomonas fluorescens strain expressing an active scorpion neurotoxin has dual activity against phytopathogenic fungi and insects, making at attractive for agronomic applications.