• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.17 no.11
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• pp.1885-1889
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• 2007

The tissue blot immunobinding assay (TBIA) is widely used for the detection and localization of plant viruses in various plant tissues. The basic experimental procedures of TBIA sampling and blotting were simplified using commercially available micropipette tips. This method was termed the ring-blot immunobinding assay (R-BIA), as the blot on the membrane forms a ring shape. The detection efficacy of R-BIA was tested for two chili pepper viruses, pepper mild mottle tobamovirus (PMMoV) and pepper mottle potyvirus (PepMoV), following the optimized serological procedures of TBIA (length of the incubation period and BSA concentration, and primary and secondary antibodies). Sensitivity of the R-BIA was about 1 ng/ml of purified PMMoV in pepper leaf sap from a healthy pepper plant. R-BIA also showed high specificity in the detection of PMMoV and PepMoV. Moreover, the modified sampling and blotting procedures were simpler and more reliable than other TBIA methods (such as whole-leaf blotting and crushed-leaf blotting), suggesting that the R-BIA may be used for medium- to large-scale detection of plant viruses in laboratories with minimal facilities.

• Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering:BBE
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.173-178
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• 2001

Food yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, is a safe organism with a long history of use for the production of biomass rich in high quality proteins and vitamins. AmA1, a seed storage albumin from Amaranthus hypochondriacus, has a well-balanced amino acid composition and high levels of essential amino acids and offers the possibility of further improving food animal feed additives. In order to find an effective means of expressing AmA1 in yeast, the gene was cloned into an episomal shuttle vector. Four different promoters were tested: the glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase promoter, galactose dehydrogenase 10 promoter, alcohol dehydrogenase II promoter, and a hybrid ADH2-GPD promoter. The recombinant AmA1 genes were then introduced into the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae 2805. Northern and Western blot analyses of the yeast under appropriate conditions revealed that AmA1 was expressed by all four promoters at varying levels. An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay demonstrated that the amount of AmA1 protein in the recombinant yeast was 1.3-4.3% of the total soluble proteins. The highest expression level was obtained from the hybrid ADH2-GPD promoter.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.677-680
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• 2007

To analyze a cotG-based Bacillus subtilis spore display system directly, $GFP_{UV}$ was expressed on the surface of Bacillus subtilis spores. When $GFP_{UV}$ was fused to the C-terminal of the cotG structural gene and expressed, the existence of a $CotG-GFP_{UV}$ fusion protein on the B. subtilis spore was confirmed by flow cytometry confocal microscopic analysis. When the cotG anchoring motif was deleted, no fluorescence emission was observed under flow cytometry and confocal microscopic analysis from the purified spore, confirming the essential role of CotG as an anchoring motif. This $GFP_{UV}$ displaying spore might be used for another signaling application triggered by intracellular or extracellular stimuli.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.48-54
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• 2008

A putative ${\omega}$-aminotransferase gene, cc3143 (aptA), from Caulobacter crescentus was screened by bioinformatical tools and overexpressed in E. coli, and the substrate specificity of the ${\omega}$-aminotransferase was investigated. AptA showed high activity for short-chain ${\beta}$-amino acids. It showed the highest activity for 3-amino-n-butyric acid. It showed higher activity toward aromatic amines than aliphatic amines. The 3D model of the ${\omega}$-aminotransferase was constructed by homology modeling using a dialkylglycine decarboxylase (PDB ID: 1DGE) as a template. Then, the ${\omega}$-aminotransferase was rationally redesigned to increase the activity for 3-amino-3-phenylpropionic acid. The mutants N285A and V227G increased the relative activity for 3-amino-3-phenylpropionic acid to 3-amino-n-butyric acid by 11-fold and 3-fold, respectively, over that of wild type.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.314-317
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• 2007

A soft stem rot disease was observed on Chamaecereus silvestrii (Korean name: Sanchui), a scion of graft-cactus, in major growing areas of Suwon (National Horticulture Research Institute), Anseong, Eumseong, Cheonan, Daegu, and Goyang, Korea during 2000 and 2001. Typical symptoms were soft rots characterized by moist and watery decay of the whole cactus stem, which initiated as small water-soaked lesions and enlarged rapidly to the entire stem. The causal organism isolated from the infected stems was identified as Pectobacterium carotovorum subsp. carotovorum (Erwinia carotovora subsp. carotovora) based on its physiological and biochemical characteristics and confirmed by the cellular fatty acid composition and Biolog analyses. Artificial inoculation of the bacterium produced the same soft rot symptoms on the cactus stems, from which the same bacterium was isolated and identified. This is the first report of the P. carotovorum subsp. carotovorum in the graft-cactus C. silvestrii in Korea.

• Animal cells and systems
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.355-359
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• 1998

Among the proteins secreted from Lactobacillus acidophilus KCTC 3151, a 36 kDA and 24 kDa protein, whose amounts were relatively abundant, were purified and their N-terminal amino acid sequences determined. The N-terminal amino acid sequence of 36 kDa protein exhibited high homology with thymidine phosphorylase and glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase. The N-terminal amino acid sequence of the 24 kDa protein did not show significant homology with proteins in Protein Data Base nor Gene Bank. Nucleotide sequence of the gene encoding 36 kDa protein indicates that the protein possesses the domains for a-helical, phosphate binding and pyrimidine binding sites, which are also shown in thymidine phosphorylases. Also, the protein contains conserved domains of dehydrogenase II and III. However, the activity of thymidine phosphorylase or glyceraldehyde-3-puospnate dehydrogenase could not be detected in the purified fractions of the 36 kDa protein.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.39-43
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• 2011

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are recently discovered small RNA molecules usually resulting in translational repression and gene silencing. Despite the fact that specific cloning of small RNA's is a method in practice, computational identification of miRNA's has been a major focus recent days, since is a rapid process following AB initio and sequence alignment methods. Here we developed new software called MiRPI that aims to identify the highly conserved miRNAs without any mismatches from given fasta formatted gene sequences by using non-repeated miRNA dataset of the user's interest. The new window embedded with the software is used to identify the targets for inputted mature miRNAs in the mRNA sequences. Also MiRPI is designed to measure the precursor miRNA statistics, majorly focusing the Adjusted Minimum Folding free Energy (AMFE) and Minimum Folding free Energy Index (MFEI), the most important parameters in miRNA confirmation. MiRPI is developed by PERL (Practical Extraction and Report Language) and Tk (Tool kit widgets) scripting languages. It is user friendly, portable offline software that works in all windows OS, sized to 3 MB.

• Animal cells and systems
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.133-137
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• 2003

Secreted proteins and membrane proteins play key roles in the formation, differentiation, and maintenance of multicellular organisms. In this study, we undertook to characterize these protein types in the central nervous system of the marine snail Aplysia kurodai using a yeast-based signal sequence trap method. One hundred and three cDNA clones were obtained by screening 300,000 clones from the signal sequence trap cDNA library. Of these, twelve were identical to previously identified Aplysia genes, 19 were related to known proteins in other organisms, and 54 clones were novel. These 54 new genes had high signal peptide scores or were found likely to contain a transmembrane domain sequence. Only 18 of the 103 clones proved to be false positive. The study demonstrates that the signal sequence trap method is an effective tool for Isolating Aplysia genes encoding secreted and membrane proteins.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.287-294
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• 1999

A technique based on the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for the specific detection of genus Phytophthora and Phytophthora cryptogea-P. drechsleri complex group was developed using nucleotide sequence information of ribosomal DNA (rDNA) regions. The internal transcribed spacers (ITS) including 5.8S were sequenced for P. cryptogea-P. drechsleri complex group and its related species. Two pairs of oligonucleotide primers were designed. Primer pair ITS1/Phy amplified ca. 240 bp fragment in 12 out of 13 specie of Phytophthora, but not in Pythium spp., Fusarium spp.and Rhizoctonia solani. Primer pair rPhy/Pcd amplified 549 bp fragment only in P. cryptogea-P. drechsleri complex group, but not in other Phytophthora spp.and other genera. Specific PCR amplification using the primers was successful in detecting Phytophthora and P. cryptogea-P. drechsleri complex group in diseased plants.

• 한국균학회소식:학술대회논문집
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• 2018.05a
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• pp.11-11
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• 2018

Cryphonectria parasitica, chestnut blight fungus, has a characteristic of decreasing pathogenicity when infected with Cryphonectria hypovirus 1. C. parasitica is known to be one of the most representative model systems used to observe the interaction between viruses, plants and fungi. The mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway, which is well conserved in various organisms ranging from yeast to humans, functions in relaying phosphorylation-dependent signals within MAPK cascades to diverse cellular functions involved in the regulation of pheromone, cell wall integrity, and osmotolerance in filamentous fungi. Several genes in the MAPK pathway were revealed to be regulated by hypovirus, or to be involved in pathogenicity in C. parasitica. Among these pathways, the CWI pathway has aroused interest because CpBck1, an ortholog of yeast Bck1 (a CWI MAPKKK), was previously reported to be involved in cell wall integrity and sectorization. Interestingly, sporadic sectorization was observed in the CpBck1 mutant and sectored phenotypes were stably inherited in the progeny that were successively transferred from sectored mycelia. In this study, we analyzed the biological function of CpSlt2, downstream gene of CpBck1, to confirm whether the sectorization phenomenon occurred in the specific single gene or cell wall integrity (CWI) pathway. As results, the CpSlt2-null mutant exhibited marked changes in colonial growth, near absence of conidiation and aerial hyphae, abnormal pigmentation, CWI-related phenotypic defects, and dramatically impaired virulence. As cultivation of the mutant strains progressed, the majority of the colonies showed sporadic sectorization and mycelia from the sectored area stably maintained the sectored phenotype. These results suggest that the unique sectorization is CWI pathway-specific, though the components in the same CWI pathway have common and specific functions.