• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.398-404
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• 2022

Bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) is one of the plasticizers used in the polyvinyl chloride(PVC) industry. It is known to be easily released into the environment. In this study, we investigated effects of DEHP on growth, metabolic pathway, and virulence gene expression in soil-borne bacterial plant pathogen, Pectobacterium carotovorum SCC1 using in vitro assays. As a result, DEHP at 20 ㎍ mL^-1 did not affect the growth, cell membrane permeability, or ATPase activity of P. carotovorum SCC1. However, it decreased succinyl-CoA synthase (SCS) activity in the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle. Relative expression levels of virulence genes encoding pectate lyase and pectin were differentially influenced by DEHP treatment. These results suggest that biological characteristics of P. carotovorum might be influenced by DEHP in soil.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.34 no.8
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• pp.1609-1616
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• 2024

The Burkholderia cepacia complex (Bcc) consists of opportunistic pathogens known to cause pneumonia in immunocompromised individuals, especially those with cystic fibrosis. Treating Bcc pneumonia is challenging due to the pathogens' high multidrug resistance. Therefore, inhalation therapy with tobramycin powder, which can achieve high antibiotic concentrations in the lungs, is a promising treatment option. In this study, we investigated potential mechanisms that could compromise the effectiveness of tobramycin therapy. By selecting for B. cenocepacia survivors against tobramycin, we identified three spontaneous mutations that disrupt a gene encoding a key enzyme in the biosynthesis of cobalamin (Vitamin B₁₂). This disruption may affect the production of succinyl-CoA by methylmalonyl-CoA mutase, which requires adenosylcobalamin as a cofactor. The depletion of cellular succinyl-CoA may impact the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle, which becomes metabolically overloaded upon exposure to tobramycin. Consequently, the mutants exhibited significantly reduced reactive oxygen species (ROS) production. Both the wild-type and mutants showed tolerance to tobramycin and various other bactericidal antibiotics under microaerobic conditions. This suggests that compromised ROS-mediated killing, due to the impacted TCA cycle, underlies the mutants' tolerance to bactericidal antibiotics. The importance of ROS-mediated killing and the potential emergence of mutants that evade it through the depletion of cobalamin (Vitamin B₁₂) provide valuable insights for developing strategies to enhance antibiotic treatments of Bcc pneumonia.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.23-30
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• 1968

Tissue homogenates of 12 kinds of human cancer tissues were incubated separately in medium containing $C^{14}-1-glucose$ and $C^{14}-6-glucose$ as a substrate in order to observe the oxidative pathway of glucose in the tumor tissues. At the end of 3 hours incubation in the Dubnuff metabolic shaking incubator, respiratory $CO_2$ samples trapped by alkaling which was placed in the center well of incubation flask were analysed for total $CO_2$ production rates and their radioactivities. The tissue homogenate samples after incubation were analyzed for their concentrations of glucose, lactate and pyruvate. Calculations were made on the glucose consumption rate and accumulation rates of lactate and pyruvate. Fractionation of oxidative pathway of glucose was carried out by calculating $C^{14}O_2 yields from C-1 and C-6 carbon of glucose. The following results were obtained. 1. In 12 kinds of human cancer, total $CO_2$ production rates were less than $8{\mu}M/gm$ except 2 cases. These lower values impressed that oxidative metabolism in the tumor tissues generally inhibited as compared with that in normal tissues. On the other hand, fractions of $CO_2$ derived from glucose to total $CO_2$ production rates (RSA) were less than 10% in every case. These facts showed that oxidation of glucose into $CO_2$ was remarkably inhibited in the tumor tissues. 2. Factions of glucose disappeared into $CO_2\;(RGD_{CO_2})$, lactate $(RGD_L)$, pyruvate $(RGD_P)$ to glucose consumption rates were as follows. $RGD_{CO_2}$ were less than 2% in cases of in this experiment and $RGD_L$ showed more than 5% except in 2 cases. These facts showed that anaerobic degradation of glucose into 3 carbon compounds was easily proceeded but further degradation into $CO_2$ via the TCA cycle was greatly inhibited resulting in accumulation of lactate. There are large variation in values of $RGD_P$ in different kinds of tumor tissue but relatively higher values in $RGD_{CO_2}$ were obtained in the tumor tissues as compared with those of normal tissues. 3. The oxidative pathway of glucose in tumor tissues were analyzed from the values of RSA which were obtained in $C^{14}-1\;and\;C^{14}-6-glucose$ incubation experiments. It was found that 3% of $CO_2$ derived from glucose were oxidized via the principal EMP-TCA cycle and the remainder were via alternate pathway such as HMP in the liver cancer and values in other cancer tissues were as follows; 4% in the tongue cancer, 6% in the colon cancer, 6% in the lung cancer, 9% in the stomach cancer, 11% in the ovarian cancer, 12% in the neck tumor, 22% in the uterine cancer, 22% in the bladder tumor, 32% in the spindle cell sarcoma and 65% in the brain tumor. These values except later 2 cases showed less than 30% which is the lowest value among the normal tissues. Even in the brain tumor in which showed highest value in the tumor group. It is reasonable to suppose that this fraction was remarkably decreased because values in normal brain tissue was more than 90%. From the above data, it was concluded that in tumor tissues, oxidation of glucose via TCA cycle was greatly inhibited but correlation between degree of inhibited oxidation of glucose via TCA cycle and malignancy of tumor were not clarified in this experiments.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.868-873
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• 2004

The efficient fermentative production of L-threonine fermentation was achieved by using Escherichia coli MT201, transformed a plasmid carrying pyruvate carboxylase gene. It is an attempt to supply oxaloacetate to the L-threonine biosynthetic pathway. In order to improve the L-threonine productivity of E. coli MT201, a plasmid pPYC which is an expression vector of the pyruvate carboxylase gene of Coryne-bacterium glutamicum, was introduced. When E. coli MT/pPYC was incubated with medium containing only glucose as a carbon source, both the cell growth and L-threonine production were reduced, compared to the results from fermentation of E. coli MT201. In order to circumvent this effect, we attempted the addition of a mixed carbon source, composed of glucose and sodium citrate at a ratio of 1.5:3.5. It was shown that L-threonine production and cell growth (OD660) with E. coli MT/pPYC reached up to 75.7 g/l and 48, respectively, at incubation for 75 hr under fed-batch fermentation conditions. It is assumed that overproduction of L-threonine by anaplerotic pathway leads unbalance of TCA cycle and sodium citrate might playa role to recover normal TCA cycle.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.31 no.8
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• pp.778-785
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• 2021

The germination of cucumber seeds begins with the degradation of reserved oil to fatty acids within the lipid body, which are then further metabolized to acyl-CoA. The acyl-CoA moves from the lipid body to the glyoxysome following β-oxidation for the production of acetyl-CoA. As an initial carbon source supplier, acetyl-CoA is an essential molecule in the glyoxylate cycle within the glyoxysome, which produces the metabolic intermediates of citrate and malate, among others. The glyoxylate cycle is a necessary metabolic pathway for oil seed plant germination because it produces the metabolic intermediates for the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle and for gluconeogenesis, such as the oxaloacetate, which moves to the cytosol for the initiation of gluconeogenesis by phophoenolpyruvate carboxykinase (PEPCK). Following reserved oil mobilization, the production and transport of various metabolic intermediates are involved in the coordinated operation and activation of multiple metabolic pathways to supply directly usable carbohydrate in the form of glucose. Furthermore, corresponding gene expression regulation compatibly transforms the microbody to glyoxysome, which contains the organelle-specific malate synthase (MS) and isocitrate lyase (ICL) enzymes during oil seed germination. Together with glyoxylate cycle, carnitine, which mediates the supplementary route of the acetyl-CoA transport mechanism via the mitochondrial BOU (A BOUT DE SOUFFLE) system, possibly plays a secondary role in lipid metabolism for enhanced plant development.

• 한국생물공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2001.11a
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• pp.739-740
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• 2001

DNA microarray with a set of 37 Corynebacterium glutamicum genes encoding enzymes for primary metabolism of glycolysis, TCA cycle and lysine biosynthesis, anaplerosis etc was constructed on slide glass in triplicate. With this DNA microarray, metabolic characteristics of the lysine-producing strain was analyzed during different phase of the cultivation. The major differences in using glucose as a carbon source instead of sucrose was found in the anaplerolytic enzymes, which control the interconversion of C3 and C4 metabolites. Also, the expression profile of these major enzymes was found to be quite distinct among different phases of growth.

• The Microorganisms and Industry
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.23-33
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• 1992

The general characteristics of campylobacters and related organisms (e.g., species of the genera Helicobacter and Wolinella, Bacteroides ureolyticus, and Bacteroides gracilis) are as follows: slender, non-sporeforming, gram-negative, vibroid bacteria (helical- or spiral- shpaed; except that B. ureolyticus and B. gracilis are straight-rod), 0.2-0.5 .mu.m in width and 0.5 .mu.m in length. (Smibert, 1984; Penner, 1988). The species of genus Campylobacter and related organisms are chemoorganotrophs; however, they neither oxidize nor ferment carbohydrates and instead obtain energy from amino acids, the salts of tricarboxylic acids (TCA) cycle intermediates, the salts of organic acids, or, in some species, H$\_$2/. With regard to their oxygen responses for growth, they all are microaeophilic i.e., they are capable of oxygen-dependent growth (respiring with oxygen as a terminal electron acceptor) but can not grow in the presence of a level of oxygen equivalent to that present in an air atmosphere (21% oxygen). This review will take interests in how these microorganisms response to oxygen for growth and what repiratory types they have.

• The Korean Journal of Ecology
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.75-85
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• 1991

Changes in the activities of isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) and glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH) and changes in free amino acids in the cytoplasm of Saccharomyces cerevisiae have been studied under heat shock condition. Heat shock conditions led to a significant decrease of NAD-IDH and NAD-GDH, It was shown appeared that the meaningful patterns of increase of NADP-IDH and NADP-GDH. It suggested that heat shock in yeast leads to a splitting of the TCA cycle and that glutamate synthesis takes place through the coupling of the NADP-linked isocirate and glutamate dehydrogenase. It was shown that about 14% of total free amino acids of yeast cells was decreased by heat shock. Especially heat shock condition resulted in the marked decreases of serine family amino acids such as serine, glycine and cysteine, and in the considerable increases of the rates of methionine, alanine, glutamin.

• Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering:BBE
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.516-521
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• 2006

The use of gltA gene, as a new biomarker for environmental stress biomonitoring, was investigated because of its key position as the first enzyme of the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle. A recombinant bioluminescent Escherichia coli strain, EBJM2, was constructed using a plasmid carrying the citrate synthase (gltA) promoter transcribing the Photorhabdus luminescens IuxCDABE genes (gltA::luxCDABE). The responses from this strain were studied with five different classes of toxicants: DNA damage chemicals, phenolics, oxidative-stress chemicals, PAHs, and organic solvents. EBJM2 responded strongly to DNA damage chemicals, such as mitomycin C (MMC) and methyl-nitro-nitrosoguanidine (MNNG) and nalidixic acid with the strongest responses. In contrast, tests with several compounds from the other four classes of toxicants gave no significant response. Therefore, EBJM2 was found to be sensitive to DNA damage chemicals.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.295-299
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• 1998

HSP104 protein in Saccharomyces cerevisiae is known to provide thermotolerance when induced by various kinds of stresses, such as a mild heat shock, ethanol, and hypoxia. It helps cells survive at an otherwise lethal temperature. Mechanisms by which HSP104 protein works are yet to be elucidated. In order to understand a molecular basis of thermotolerance due to HSP104 protein induced by a mild heat shock, studies on respiratory pathways were carried out in the wild type as well as in the hsp104 deleted mutant. Especially the degree of 13C-acetate incorporation into glutamate-C4 was examined for both strains using 13C-13C homonuclear spin coupling measurements, since glutamate is in a rapid equilibrium with α-ketoglutarate in the TCA cycle. In addition, the temperature effects on the rate of 13C incorporation are compared with or without HSP104 protein expressed. Finally, the inhibitory effect of HSP104 on the respiration pathway was confirmed by the measurements of oxygen consumption rates for both strains.