• Journal of Life Science
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.726-737
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• 2017

Carotenoids are isoprenoids with a long polyene chain containing 3 to 15 conjugated double bonds, which determines their absorption spectrum. They typically consist of a $C_{40}$ hydrocarbon backbone often modified by different oxygen-containing functional groups, to yield cyclic or acyclic xanthophylls. Much work has also been focused on the identification, production, and utilization of natural sources of carotenoid (plants, microorganisms and crustacean by-products) as an alternative to the synthetic pigment which currently covers most of the world markets. Nevertheless, only a few carotenoids (${\beta}-carotene$, lycopene, astaxanthin, canthaxanthin, and lutein) can be produced commercially by fermentation or isolation from the small number of abundant natural sources. The market and demand for carotenoids is anticipated to increase dramatically with the discovery that carotenoids exhibit significant anti-carcinogenic activities and play an important role in the prevention of chronic diseases. The increasing importance of carotenoids in the feed, nutraceutical food and pharmaceutical markets has renewed by efforts to find ways of producing additional carotenoid structures in useful quantities. Because microorganisms and plants synthesize hundreds of different complex chemical carotenoid structures and a number of carotenoid biosynthetic pathways have been elucidated on a molecular level, metabolic and genetic engineering of microorganisms can provide a means towards economic production of carotenoid structures that are otherwise inaccessible. The aim of this article is to review our current understanding of carotenoid formation, to explain the perceived benefits of carotenoid in the diet and review the efforts that have been made to increase carotenoid in certain microorganisms.

• Journal of Photoscience
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.47-52
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• 1994

Effects of HgCl$_2$-treatment on electron transport, chlorophyll a fluorescence and its quenching were studied using isolated barley (Hordeum vulgare L. cv. Albori) chloroplasts. Depending on the concentration of HgCI$_2$, photosynthetic oxygen-evolving activities of photosystem II (PS II) were greatly inhibited, whereas those of photosystem I (PS I) were slightly decreased. The inhibitory effects of HgCl$_2$ on the oxygen-evolving activity was partially restored by the addition of hydroxyamine, suggesting the primary inhibition site by HgCl$_2$2-treatment is close to the oxidizing site of PS tl associated with water-splitting complex. Addition of 50 $\mu$M HgCI$_2$ decreased both photochemical and nonphotochemical quenching of chlorophyll fluorescence. Especially, energy dependent quenching (qE) was completely disappeared by HgCl$_2$-treatment as observed by NH$_4$CI treatment. In the presence of HgCI$_2$, F'o level during illumination was also increased. These results suggest that pH gradient across thylakoid membrane can not be formed in the presence of 0 $\mu$M HgCl$_2$. In addition, antenna pigment composition might be altered by HgCl$_2$-treatment.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.483-487
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• 1992

Among a few number of UV-resistant isolated form various environmental sources (10), we made a comparative physio-chemoanalytical study on one of spherical bacteria isolated from air dust, presumably Deinococcus sp. (CM strain 29) with an UV resistant bacterium, Deinococcus radiophilus ATCC 27603 as the reference strain. Our isolate of UV resistant coccus, Deinococcus sp. CM 29 and D. radiophilus ATCC 27603 showed more than 75% matching coefficient in metabolic activity of various substrates. The most predominant cellular fatty acid of both strains was palmitoleic acid (C 16 :1, cis 9), but the detail fatty acid profiles were slightly dissimilar to each other. Cell-bound arange pigment seemed to be an identical chemicals on spectrophotometric analysis. L-ornithine was detected as cell-wall amino acid in both strains. Galactose was detected as cell-wall sugar in D. radiophilus ATCC 27603, whereas glucose in Deinococcus sp. CM 29. G-C molar ratio of both strains was comparable, 63-65%.

• Textile Coloration and Finishing
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.38-45
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• 1999

Natural red colorants were extracted from Phytolacca americana Linne by using 50% ethanol solution at room temperature for 12 hours. The colorant components were partially purified as yellow and deep red colorants by thin layer chromatography. Natural red colorants were consisted of major water-soluble red colorant, having maximum absorbance at 538nm and alcohol-soluble yellow colorant, having maximum absorbance at 664nm. Concentration of red colorants were calibrated by the equation of dye(mg/ml) $A_{538nm}\times{1.284}$. Red colorants were changed to yellow at extreme alkali pH and repaired 55% color intensity by neutralization of pH and stabled below $55^\circ{C}$. Dyeability of red colorants against wool fabrics was mainly operated by red pigment having 538nm absorbance without big color differences. Below $55^\circ{C}$, color differences $(\Delta{E}^*_{ab})$ were not changed in spite of big difference of chroma$(c^*)$, having higher scores at higher temperature. The effect of mordants were not drastically changed parameters of color difference without copper ion. Citric acid was big changes of color difference$(\Delta{E}^*_{ab})$ in spite of similar chroma$(c^*)$ values. From these experimental results, red colorants from Phytolacca americana Linne is available for wool fabric dyeing.

• Mycobiology
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.429-439
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• 2018

To develop a convenient promoter analysis system for fungi, a null-pigment mutant (NPG) of Aspergillus nidulans was used with the 4'-phosphopantetheinyl transferase (PPTase) gene, npgA, which restores the normal pigmentation in A. nidulans, as a new reporter gene. The functional organization of serially deleted promoter regions of the A. nidulans trpC gene and the Cryphonectria parasitica crp gene in filamentous fungi was representatively investigated to establish a novel fungal promoter assay system that depends on color complementation of the NPG mutant with the PPTase npgA gene. Several promoter regions of the trpC and crp genes were fused to the npgA gene containing the 1,034-bp open reading frame and the 966-bp 3' downstream region from the TAA, and the constructed fusions were introduced into the NPG mutant in A. nidulans to evaluate color recovery due to the transcriptional activity of the sequence elements. Serial deletion of the trpC and crp promoter regions in this PPTase reporter assay system reaffirmed results in previous reports by using the fungal transformation step without a laborious verification process. This approach suggests a more rapid and convenient system than conventional analyses for fungal gene expression studies.

• Food Science and Preservation
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.256-261
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• 2000

Carrot, cucumber, spinach which contain carotenoid and chlorophyll pigment, and green tea which contain catechin were selected to natural materials. Although the yield of soybean curd with added natural materials were below than non-added soybean curd. Also, the additive natural materials in the soybean curd had no effect to the texture in soybean curd. The optimum concentration of added natural materials were high acceptability opposed to the non-containing soybean curd. The optimum concentration of added natural materials soybean curds was obtained : 4% of carrot, 10% of cucumber, 1.0% of spinach and 0.05% of green tea powder. And soybean curd with spinach and green tea addition had a longer shelf life because it prevented growing of bacteria in the early stage. Therefore, it could be possible to prevent the deterioration of soybean curd with added natural materials.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.977-983
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• 2002

This study was performed to establish the precise and rapid method to distinguish croakers through the pigment analysis of colored imported white croakers for adultration. We surveyed the coloring behaviors, extraction test by water and organic solvent and using pigments such as targeting, curcumine, and azo dye products. The pigment of yellow croaker is not stained on wet cloth or tissue which is rubbed on epidermis of yellow croaker and was not eluted in water extraction test, while adulterated pigments were easily extracted by water and acetone, but edible diluted yellow, Yellow No. 4 and Yellow No. 5 were not extracted. Reactive pigment was detected easily by extraction with water and dispersed pigment was also detected by extraction test. As a result of discoloring characteristics of carotene having similar structure to yellow croaker and azo dye by oxidation and reduction, azo dyes were not discolored by oxidation with sodium percarbonate or peracetic acid but that were discolored by oxidation with Fenton reagent after 1hr and by hypochlorite promptly. On the other hand, carotenes were not discolored by sodium precarbonate and Fenton reagent but discolored by sodium hypochlorite after 2 hr and by peracetic acid promptly. Azo dyes were discolored by reduction with sodium hydrosulfite and sodium carbonate but carotenes were not discolored by these reagents. This discoloring test was applicable to detect adulterated pigments and other marine product.

• Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.253-259
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• 2000

In order to study the effects of the maturing temperature of kanjang(Korean traditional soy sauce) mash on the distributions of chemical compositions and sensory characteristics of kanjang, test kanjang mash prepared by mixing one part of meju and three parts of 20% salt solutions was matured at 15, 30 and $45^{\circ}C$ for 60 days respectively. It was found that although the higher the maturing temperature upto $45^{\circ}C$ for 60 days of maturing the higher total nitrogen, total free amino acids and pigment content in kanjang could be obtained, better quality kanjang containing the lower acetic acid, butyric acid and pyroglutamic acid with the higher ratio of the glutamic acid to the total free amino acids and the higher sensory evaluation scores could be prepared by maturing kanjang mash at $15^{\circ}C$.

• Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.345-351
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• 2005

To access the natural products of uncultured microorganisms, we constructed and screened the metagenomic DNA libraries by using a cosmid vector and DNA inserts isolated directly from soil. Initial screening of the libraries in Escherichia coli resulted in the isolation of several clones that produce a dark brown color when grown in LB medium. One of the positive clones, designed pYS85C, was transposon mutagenized and the DNA surrounding the transposon insertions in cosmids that no longer conferred the production of brown pigment to E. coli was sequenced. Annotation of the pYS85C sequence obtained from the transposon mutagenesis experiment indicated a single 393 amino acid open reading frame (ORF) with a molecular mass of about 44.5 kDa, predicted to be a 4-hydroxyphenylpyruvate dioxygenases (HPPDs), was responsible for the observed brown pigment. In a BLAST search against deposited sequence, the translated protein from this ORF showed moderate-level identity (>60%) to the other known HPPDs and was most conserved in the C-terminal region of the protein. These results show that genes involved in natural product synthesis can be cloned directly from soil DNA and expressed in a heterologous host, supporting the idea that this technology has the potential to provide novel natural products from the wealth of environmental microbial diversity and is a potentially important new tool for drug discovery.

• 보존과학연구
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• s.36
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• pp.11-32
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• 2015

The purpose of this study is to analyse the properties of natural mineral pigments used in restoration and conservation of cultural assets. For this study blue-based pigments that are sold in market were selected. The component analysis using by XRF and XRD shows that blue pigment consist of Azurite. And each specimens were evaluated particle size, chromaticity, specific gravity and oil-absorption according to rating system of pigments particle size. Results show that the value of L* increase with the decrease in particle size. The results suggest that the physical properties which is specific gravity, oil-absorption and chromaticity depend on the particle sizes of pigments. When it comes to particle size of pigments decreased by increasing the number of rating system. In addition, the chromaticity related to particle size. The result from this study expects to be used as useful referencing data for conservation and restoration of cultural heritage and understanding phenomena of the properties according to various particle size of Seokcheong pigment.