• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.77-83
• /
• 1999

Molecular biological techniques that recently developed, have made it possible to realize some of new attempts in the research field of rumen microbiology. Those are 1) cloning of genes from rumen microorganisms mainly in E. coli, 2) transformation of rumen bacteria and 3) ecological analysis with nonculturing methods. Most of the cloned genes are for polysaccharidase enzymes such as endoglucanase, xylanase, amylase, chitinase and others, and the cloning rendered gene structural analyses by sequencing and also characterization of the translated products through easier purification. Electrotransformation of Butyrivibrio fibrisolvens and Prevotella ruminicola have been made toward the direction for obtaining more fibrolytic, acid-tolerant, depoisoning or essential amino acids-producing rumen bacterium. These primarily required stable and efficient gene transfer systems. Some vectors, constructed from native plasmids of rumen bacteria, are now available for successful gene introduction and expression in those rumen bacterial species. Probing and PCR-based methodologies have also been developed for detecting specific bacterial species and even strains. These are much due to accumulation of rRNA gene sequences of rumen microbes in databases. Although optimized analytical conditions are essential to reliable and reproducible estimation of the targeted microbes, the methods permit long term storage of frozen samples, providing us ease in analytical work as compared with a traditional method based on culturing. Moreover, the methods seem to be promissing for obtaining taxonomic and evolutionary information on all the rumen microbes, whether they are culturable or not.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Plant Pathology Conference
• /
• 2003.10a
• /
• pp.66.1-66
• /
• 2003

The aim of this study was to characterize the interactions of rice and Burkholderia glumae, a causal agent of bacterial grain rot of rice, at molecular levels using whole genomic sequences and to identify genes important for pathogenicity and symptom development. To do these, we sequenced whole genome of the bacterium and constructed cosmid clone profiles. We generated pools of mutants using various transposons and determined mutation sites by sequencing rescued plasmids. We focused on studying toxoflavin biosynthetic genes, quorum sensing regulation, and Hrp type III protein secretion systems. We found that two possible operons consisting of five genes are involved in toxoflavin biosynthesis and their expression is regulated by quorum sensing and LysR-type regulator, ToxR. We have isolated the nn PAI of B. glumae and characterized by mutational analyses. The hrp cluster resembled most the putative Type III secretion systems of B. pseudomallei, which is the causative agent of melioidosis, a serious disease of man and animals. The Hrp PAI core region showed high similarity to that of Ralstonia solanacearum and Xanthomonas campestris, however some aspects were dissimilar.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
• /
• v.28 no.2
• /
• pp.109-113
• /
• 1990

The mutagenesis-enhancing plasmid pKM101 and its mutant pSL4 were introduced into Escherichia coli B/r strains possessing different DNA repair capacities ($phr^{-}, recA^{-}, uvrA^{-}, uvrB^{-}$) and determined the protection effect and mutagenecity for UV and MNNG. The mutability and protection effect of plasmid pKM101 and pSL4 were affected by different DNA repair capacity. The mutagenecity and resistance of two plasmids were increased against UV and MNNG, and plasmid pSL4 had a higher effect than pKM101. We suggest that the functional differences between pKM101 and pSL4 is due to the variety of mutator gene.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.13 no.1
• /
• pp.110-118
• /
• 2003

Pseudomonas syringae pv. actinidiae strains, which cause canker disease in kiwifruit, were collected from kiwifruit orchards in Korea and identified using biochemical and physiological tests. The nucleotide sequences of the 16s rDNA and 16s-23s internally transcribed spacer of the isolates were found to be Identical to those of' the pathotype strain, Kwl 1, of P syringae pv. actinidiae. Remarkably, no coding sequence for phaseolotoxin biosynthesis or phaseolotoxin- resistant ornithine carbamoyltransferase was found by PCR amplification in any of the new Korean isolates of pseudomonas syringae pv. actinidiae, although this was clearly identified in the control pathotype Kwl 1 reference strain. In contrast, three primer sets derived from the coronatine biosynthetic gene cluster and DNA from the Korean strains yielded amplified DNA fragments of the expected size. A sequence analysis of the PCR products revealed that P. syringae pv. actinidiae and the Korean strains of pv. actinidiae contain coronafncate ligase genes (cfl)with identical sequences, whereas their. corR genes exhibited 91% sequence similarity. The production of coronatine, instead of phaseolotoxin, by the Korean strains of P. syringae pv. actinidiae was confirmed by a bioassay using reference pathovars known to produce coronatine and phaseolotoxin. The genes for coronatine biosynthesis in the Korean strains of P. syringae pv. actinidiae were found to be present on plasmids.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Applied Microbiology Conference
• /
• 2000.04a
• /
• pp.68-75
• /
• 2000

D-Tagatose is a potential bulking agent in food as a non-calorific sweetener. To produce D-tagatose from cheaper resources, plasmids harboring the L-arabinose isomerase gene (araA) from Escherichia coli was constructed because L-arabinose isomerase was previously suggested as an enzyme that mediates the bioconversion of galactose to tagatose as well as that of arabinose to ribulose. In the cultures of recombinant E.coli with pTC101, which harboring araA of E.coli, tagatose was produced from galactose in 9.9 % yield. The enzyme extract of E.coli containing pTC101 also converted galactose into tagatose in 96.4 % yield. For the economic production of D-tagatose, an L-arabinose isomerase of E.coli was immobilized using covalent binding on agarose. While the free L-arabinose isomerase produced tagatose with the rate of 0.48 mg/U$.$day, the immobilized one stably converted galactose into average 7.5 g/l$.$day of tagatose during 7 days with higher productivity of 0.87 mg/U$.$day. In the scaled up immobilized enzyme system, 99.9 g/l of tagatose was produced from galactose with 20 % equilibrium in 48 hrs. The process was stably repeated additional 2 times with tagatose production of 104.1 and 103.5 g/l.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.3 no.4
• /
• pp.256-260
• /
• 1993

DNA subfragments, sopA, sopB and sopC which help to maintain the stability of an ori C plasmid, were derived from a mini-F plasmid DNA (EcoRI restriction fragment f5) after digestion with restriction endonuclease, and cloned in the vector plasmid pBR322. The recombinant plasmids obtained were introduced into E. coli KY7231 and E. coli CSR603 strains, and proteins specified by the mini-F fragments were analysed by SDS-PAGE. Two proteins encoded by the F fragments were detected, and their molecular weights were 41,000 and 37,000 daltons. Fluorography after one and two dimensional gel electrophoresis of the lysates showed that these two proteins had been overproduced in the cells which were allowed to incorporate radioactive amino acid after plasmid amplification by chloramphenicol treatment. The isoelectric points of sopA and sopB proteins were 6.6 and 7.0, respectively.

• The Journal of the Korean Society for Microbiology
• /
• v.22 no.3
• /
• pp.259-266
• /
• 1987

A total of 129 clinical isolates of Staphylococcus species was characterized by the tests of coagulase production, haemagglutination, mannitol fermentation, DNase production and hemolysis. Ninety-nine out of them showed positive reactions to the tests, therefore they were identified as Staphylococcus aureus. The isolates showing positive reaction in haemagglutination test also showed 100% of tube coagulase positive reaction. The haemagglutination test was a reliable method for identifying Staphylococcus aureus in the clinical laboratory. S. aureus produced stronger hemolysis with human blood agar than with sheep blood agar. Antibiotic resistant S. aureus isolates(S-46, S-112, S-126) had 4 to 6 p]asmid DNA elements. The S-112 strain had 6 plasmid DNA elements(1.8, 2.2, 3.7, $26.3{\sim}50$, and 70 Mdaltons), the S-126 had 4 elements(2.6, 4.2, $4.6{\sim}60Md$), and the S-46 had 1 element(${\sim}100Md$). PPSA strain had 4 plasmid DNA elements(2.5, 4.2, $4.6{\sim}60Md$) and S. aureurs(ATCC) strain contained 9.4, 26.3 and ${\sim}50Md$ plasmid DNA elements.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
• /
• v.55 no.2
• /
• pp.167-170
• /
• 2019

Pantoea intestinalis SRCM103226, isolated from edible insect mealworm overproduces zeaxanthin as a main carotenoid. The complete genome of P. intestinalis SRCM103226 was sequenced using the Pacific Biosciences (PacBio) RS II platform. The genome of P. intestinalis SRCM103226 comprises a 4,784,919 bp circular chromosome (53.41% G+C content), and is devoid of any extrachromosomal plasmids. Annotation using the RAST server reveals 4,332 coding sequences and 107 RNAs (22 rRNA genes, 85 tRNA genes). Genome annotation analysis revealed that it has five genes involved in the carotenoid pathway. The genome information provides fundamental knowledge for comparative genomics studies of the zeaxanthin pathway.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.32 no.5
• /
• pp.621-629
• /
• 2022

Bacterial outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) typically contain multiple immunogenic molecules that include antigenic proteins, making them good candidates for vaccine development. In animal models, vaccination with OMVs has been shown to confer protective immune responses against many bacterial diseases. It is possible to genetically introduce heterologous protein antigens to the bacterial host that can then be produced and relocated to reside within the OMVs by means of the host secretion mechanisms. Accordingly, in this study we sought to develop a novel platform for recombinant OMV (rOMV) production in the widely used bacterial expression host species, Escherichia coli. Three different lipoprotein signal peptides including their Lol signals and tether sequences-from Neisseria meningitidis fHbp, Leptospira interrogans LipL32, and Campylobactor jejuni JlpA-were combined upstream to the GFPmut2 model protein, resulting in three recombinant plasmids. Pilot expression studies showed that the fusion between fHbp and GFPmut2 was the only promising construct; therefore, we used this construct for large-scale expression. After inducing recombinant protein expression, the nanovesicles were harvested from cell-free culture media by ultrafiltration and ultracentrifugation. Transmission electron microscopy demonstrated that the obtained rOMVs were closed, circular single-membrane particles, 20-200 nm in size. Western blotting confirmed the presence of GFPmut2 in the isolated vesicles. Collectively, although this is a non-optimized, proof-of-concept study, it demonstrates the feasibility of this platform in directing target proteins into the vesicles for OMV-based vaccine development.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.2 no.4
• /
• pp.243-247
• /
• 1992

The thr operon of Escherichia coli TF427, an $\alpha$-amino-$\beta$-hydroxyvaleric acid (AHV)-resistant threonine overproducer, was cloned in a pBluescriptII $KS^＋$ plasmid by complementation of E. coli mutants. All clones contained a common 8.8 kb HindIII-generated DNA fragment and complemented the thrA, thrB, and thrC mutants by showing that these clones contained the whole thr operon. This thr operon was subcloned in the plasmid vectors pBR322, pUC18, and pECCG117, an E. coli/Corynebacterium glutamicum shuttle vector, to form recombinant plasmids pBTF11, pUTF25 and pGTF18, respectively. The subcloned thr operon was shown to be present in a 6.0 kb insert. A transformant of E. coli TF125 with pBTF11 showed an 8~11 fold higher aspartokinase I activity, and 15~20 fold higher L-threonine production than TF125, an AHV-sensitive methionine auxotroph. Also, it was found that the aspartokinase I activity of E. coli TF125 harboring pBTF11 was not inhibited by threonine and its synthesis was not repressed by threonine plus isoleucine.