• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.627-635
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• 2006

Combined sewer overflow (CSOs) is a primary diffuse source degrading water quality of urban streams. In this study, CSOs caused by 5 different rainfall events at an urban watershed located in Daejeon city were monitored for the indicator microorganism concentrations. Event mean concentration (EMC) of the indicator microorganisms were: total coliform = $2.46{\times}10^6CFU/100mL$; fecal coliform = $1.01{\times}10^6CFU/100mL$; E.coli = $5.20{\times}10^5CFU/100mL$; and Fecal Streptococci = $6.08{\times}10^5CFU/100mL$. In addition, coliform concentrations were well correlated with suspended solid concentrations and the first flush effects were identified. Settling tests were carried out to estimate removal rate of indicator organisms by sedimentation from CSOs. As microorganisms are discharged in association with suspended solid, ten minutes of settlement can lower 44% of indicator microorganism leading.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.56 no.5
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• pp.721-727
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• 2023

This study was conducted to evaluate the level of microbial contamination in smoked salmon products sold in hypermarkets in major metropolitan cities in Korea. Listeria monocytogenes is the primary cause of smoked and raw salmon product recalls. Here, we used L. monocytogenes as a bacterial hygiene indicator and investigated the microbial contamination level of frozen/refrigerated smoked salmon products collected from hyper markets. Contamination levels were analyzed by seasons, manufacturers, and consumption regions. For hygiene indicator bacteria, total bacteria count, coliforms, and Escherichia coli were examined according to the food code established by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was performed to detect Listeria sp. The highest contamination level was observed in spring in Busan among five consumption regions. Listeria was detected at a level of 2.1% among all samples collected. And especially L. monocytogenes was detected in two cases from the samples collected from Daegu and Daejeon. Sanitary standards and specifications should be established according to the contamination level of smoked salmon products investigated in this study, and continuous monitoring is necessary.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.30-38
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• 2012

We investigated the effects on soil microbial diversity and the growth promotion of red pepper resulting from inoculation with a microbial agent composed of Bacillus subtilis AH18, B. licheniformis K11 and Pseudomonas fluorescens 2112 in a red pepper farming field. Photosynthetic bacteria, Trichoderma spp., Azotobacter spp., Actinomycetes, nitrate oxidizing bacteria, nitrite oxidizing bacteria, nitrogen fixing bacteria, denitrifying bacteria, phosphate solubilizing bacteria, cellulase producing bacteria, and urease producing bacteria are all indicator microbes of healthy soil microbial diversity. The microbial diversity of the consortium microbial agent treated soil was seen to be 1.1 to 14 times greater than soils where other commercial agent treatments were used, the latter being the commercial agent AC-1, and chemical fertilizer. The yield of red pepper in the field with the treated consortium microbial agent was increased by more than 15% when compared to the other treatments. Overall, the microbial diversity of the red pepper farming field soil was improved by the consortium microbial agent, and the promotion of growth and subsequent yield of red pepper was higher than soils where the other treatments were utilized.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.189-196
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• 2002

The direct detection of intestinal pathogens and viruses often requires costly, tedious, and time-consuming procedures. These requirements developed a test to show that the water was contaminated with sewage-borne pathogens by assessing the hygienic quality of water based on indicator microorganisms whose presence indicates that pathogenic microorganisms may also be present. Various groups of microorganisms have been suggested and used as indicator microorganisms. Proposed and commonly used microbial indicators are total coliforms, fecal coliforms, fecal streptococci, Clostridium perfringens, heterotrophic plate count, bacteriophage, and so on. Unfortunately, most, if not all, of these indicators are not ideal because of the sensitivity and resistance to environment stresses and disinfection. However, the development of gene probes and PCR technology may give hope for the discovery of rapid and simple methods toy detecting small number of fecal pathogens in various environments.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.26-32
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• 1990

Attempts were made to define the characteristics of microbial community as an indicator of Kimchi fermentation. Determination of communities was carried out by simple Gram-stain, followed by direct microcopic counts. In room-temperature $(15^{\circ}C)$ fermentation, microbial succession was occurred in the order of communities of Gram-positive bacteria, yeasts and Gram-negative bacteria. It was characteristic that Gram-positive bacterial community was developed during the production of lactic acid, yeasts community was developed to cause rancidity, and Gram-negative bacterial community was relevant to maceration (or softening) as well as rancidity. The fluctuation of apparent Gram-negative reaction group might be used as a criterion of death or aging of Gram-positive bacterial populations. In low-temperature fermentation $(5^{\circ}C)$, however, it was found that yeasts and Gram-negative bacterial communities did not developed but only Gram-positive bacterial community did. It follows from these results mentioned above that maturity of Kimchi depends on the development of Cram-positive bacterial community. Thus, the size and occurrence of microbial community are avaiable for an indicator of Kimchi fermentation, and also determination of community could be a useful method to predict the maturity.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.292-304
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• 2018

Microbes is becoming increasingly forensic possibility as a consequence of advances in massive parallel sequencing (MPS) and bioinformatics. Human DNA typing is the best identifier, but it is not always possible to extract a full DNA profile namely its degradation and low copy number, and it may have limitations for identical twins. To overcome these unsatisfactory limitations, forensic potential for bacteria found in evidence could be used to differentiate individuals. Prokaryotic cells have a cell wall that better protects the bacterial nucleoid compared to the cell membrane of eukaryotic cells. Humans have an extremely diverse microbiome that may prove useful in determining human identity and may even be possible to link the microbes to the person responsible for them. Microbial composition within the human microbiome varies across individuals. Therefore, MPS of human microbiome could be used to identify biological samples from the different individuals, specifically for twins and other cases where standard DNA typing doses not provide satisfactory results due to degradation of human DNA. Microbial forensics is a new discipline combining forensic science and microbiology, which can not to replace current STR analysis methods used for human identification but to be complementary. Among the fields of microbial forensics, this paper will briefly describe information on the current status of microbiome research such as metagenomic code, salivary microbiome, pubic hair microbiome, microbes as indicators of body fluids, soils microbes as forensic indicator, and review microbial forensics as the feasibility of microbiome-based human identification.

• Food Science of Animal Resources
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.439-447
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• 2013

Time-temperature integrators (TTIs) are simple and cost-efficient tools which may be used to predict food quality. Enzymatic TTIs are devised to indicate food quality in the form of color alterations from green to red, based on the cumulative impacts of temperature and time period on the enzymatic reactions. In this study, the quality of ground beef patties was investigated for the parameters of pH levels, color, VBN, water holding capacity, and total microbial counts, depending on various storage temperatures (5, 15, and $25^{\circ}C$). TTIs were attached to the surface of the ground beef patties in order to evaluate the degree of correlating colorimetric changes with the determined quality parameters. Through the Arrhenius equation, activation energy and constant reaction rates of TTI, VBN, and total microbial counts were calculated as to observe the relationship between enzymatic reactions of the TTI and food spoilage reactions of the ground beef patties. VBN and total microbial counts were already increased to reach decomposition index (VBN: 20, total microbial count: 7-8 Log CFU/g) of meat at middle stage of storage period for each storage temperature. Although activation energy of TTI enzymatic reactions and food spoilage reactions of the ground beef patties were similar, the change of TTI color was not a coincidence for food spoilage at $5^{\circ}C$ and $15^{\circ}C$ of storage temperature. It was suggested that TTI should be designed individually for storage temperature, time, type of meat, or decomposition index of meat.

• Research in Plant Disease
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.225-230
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• 2012

Bacteriophages of Pectobacterium carotovorum subsp. carotovorum which causes soft rot on diverse vegetables had been isolated from 6 major Chinese cabbage cultivation areas in Korea. In order to isolate bacteriophages, total 15 different strains of P. carotovorum subsp. carotovorum isolated from nation-wide of Korea had been used as a host. When we tested 30 different soil samples individually from Pyeongchang and Taebaek with 15 different strains as a host, Taebek soil samples showed bacteriophage plaques with almost all different indicator strains but Pyeongchang soil samples showed plaques only with P. carotovorum subsp. carotovorum Pcc2 and Pcc3 strains. Especially, P. carotovorum subsp. carotovorum Pcc3 strain was able to produce plaques with almost all soil samples. Thus, this strain can be used as an indicator strain for P. carotovorum subsp. carotovorum bacteriophage screening. Electron microscope observation revealed P. carotovorum subsp. carotovorum bacteriophages isolated in Korea were belonged to three different families, Myoviridae, Siphoviridae and Podoviridae in order Caudovirales.

• Journal of Marine Bioscience and Biotechnology
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.10-19
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• 2021

This study investigated how ozone treatment can successfully inactivate pathogenic bacteria in both artificial seawater and effluents discharged from the fishery quarantine station in Pyeongtaek Port, Korea. Vibrio sp. and Streptococcus sp. were initially inoculated into the artificial seawater. All microbes were almost completely inactivated within 10 min and 30 min by injecting 6.4 mg/min and 2.0 mg/min of ozone, respectively. It was discovered that the water storing Pleuronichthys, Pelteobagrus, and Cyprinus imported from China contained the indicator bacteria, Vibrio sp., Enterococcus sp., total coliforms, and heterotrophic microorganisms. Compared to the control, three indicator bacteria were detected at two to six times higher concentrations. The water samples displayed a diverse microbial community, comprising the following four phyla: Bacteroidetes, Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, and Actinobacteria. Almost all indicator bacteria were inactivated in 5 min at 2.0 mg/min of ozonation; comparatively, 92.9%-98.2% of the less heterotrophic microorganisms were deactivated within the same time period. By increasing the dosage to 6.4 mg/min, 100% deactivation was achieved after 10 min. Despite the almost complete inactivation of most indicator bacteria at high doses after 10 min, several bacterial strains belonging to the Proteobacteria have still been found to be resistant under the given operational conditions.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.107-112
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• 2014

Glomalin has been suggested as an enhancer for soil stability by promoting the aggregation. In this study, we examined the concentrations of glomalin and microbial characteristics in 25 controlled horticultural soils sampled from Gyeongnam Province. Total glomalin had a significant positive correlation with soil organic matter (p < 0.01), soil microbial biomass carbon (p < 0.05), and dehydrogenase activity (p < 0.05) in controlled horticultural soils. In addition, the total glomalin had a significant positive correlation with concentrations of total fatty acid methyl esters, Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria, fungi, and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in controlled horticultural soils (p < 0.001). In conclusion, the concentration of total glomalin could be an indicator of microbial biomass richness for sustainable agriculture in controlled horticultural soils.