• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.191-197
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• 2005

A new method, ToxTemp (TOXcity test based on TEMPerature control) using Ceridaphnia dubia was applied to evaluate the toxicity of insecticide materials and compared with the standard 48 hr acute bioassay. BPMC, diazinon and fenitrothion may cause the inhibition to the biological process in sewage treatment plant and need to detect toxicity within short contact time. The ToxTemp method showed sensitive detection with more shorter contact of 1-1.5 hr time than that of the standard 48 hr acute bioassay. To evaluate toxicity of real wastewater/sewage, the inhibition rate of nitrification and oxygen uptake rate (OUR) using activated sludge, the standard 48hr acute bioassay and ToxTemp method using C. dubia were compared, respectively. On the basis of the inhibition rate of nitrification, the OUR test showed the less sensitive results at the relatively strong toxic sewage. On the other hands, the standard 48hr acute bioassay and ToxTemp method using C. dubia represented the toxicity of each wastewater/sewage with high sensitivity. Even the slightly low (about 1.5%) sensitivity, the ToxTemp method showed the high applicability to the real site of sewage treatment plant.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.124-131
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• 2016

The toxic responses of flagellate Euglena agilis Carter to 8 heavy metals (Ag, Cd, Cr (VI), Cu, Hg, Ni, Pb, Zn) were measured using E. agilis system (E-Tox), an automated biomonitoring system. The E-Tox measures cell movement parameters, such as velocity, motility, and forms of the cells, as biological endpoints. $EC_{50}$ values from the E. agilis biomonitoring test were compared with the literature data from the tests with Daphnia magna, Vibrio fischeri and Euglena gracilis. Measurement of the E. agilis movement behavior and D. magna acute toxicity test were also conducted for the wastewater samples. E. agilis is less sensitive than D. magna but is comparable to or more sensitive than V. fischeri and E. gracilis for the heavy metals tested in this study. E. agilis shows prompt changes of these parameters for the toxic metal plating wastewater. Major advantages of the E-tox are automatic, easy to handle and fast ecotoxicity monitoring system compared to other biological test systems. These results imply that E. agilis biomonitoring test using E-Tox can be a putative ecotoxicity test as a good early warning tool for the monitoring of toxic wastewater.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.701-709
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• 2008

Owing to the decreased work term and the convenience of construction work in Korea, the steel deck plate system has been widely used in the construction field. Most of all, due to its good stiffness and economic consideration, the steel-wire-integrated deck plate system (or truss deck plate system) has become very popular in recent years. But although it has many advantages, the truss deck plate system has a critical defect: it gets rusty in the welding joints between the lattice steel wire and the deck plate, resulting in the cracking of such welding joints and water leakage. To address these problems, a new type of truss deck plate system, which need not be welded and does not rust, was proposed herein: the TOX deck plate system. In this study, tests were conducted on 15 specimens to evaluate the structural safety of the proposed deck plate system during the construction stage. The test parameters were as follows: the depth of the slab the length of the span the diameters of the top, bottom, and lattice steel wire and the material properties of the zinc-coated steel sheets. The test results show that the TOX deck plate system can guarantee structural safety owing to its deflection and strength.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.32 no.11
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• pp.1396-1405
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• 2022

Cholera remains a major global public health problem, for which oral cholera vaccines (OCVs) being a valuable strategy. Patients, who have recovered from cholera, develop antibody responses against LPS, cholera toxin (CT), toxin-coregulated pilus (TCP) major subunit A (TcpA) and other antigens; thus, these responses are potentially important contributors to immunity against Vibrio cholerae infection. However, assessments of the efficacy of current OCVs, especially inactivated OCVs, have focused primarily on O-antigen-specific antibody responses, suggesting that more sophisticated strategies are required for inactivated OCVs to induce immune responses against TCP, CT, and other antigens. Previously, we have shown that the toxT-139F allele enables V. cholerae strains to produce CT and TCP under simple laboratory culture conditions. Thus, we hypothesized that V. cholerae strains that express TCP via the toxT-139F allele induce TCP-specific antibody responses. As anticipated, V. cholerae strains that expressed TCP through the toxT-139F allele elicited antibody responses against TCP when the inactivated bacteria were delivered via a mouse model. We have further developed TCP-expressing V. cholerae strains that have been used in inactivated OCVs and shown that they effect an antibody response against TcpA in vivo, suggesting that V. cholerae strains with the toxT-139F allele are excellent candidates for cholera vaccines.

• Mycobiology
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• v.50 no.1
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• pp.96-98
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• 2022

The Aspergilli of the section Nidulantes series Versicolores are among the most recurrent molds in indoor environments. These species cause damage to the quality of air. Indeed, they are responsible for allergies, aggravation of asthma and can even cause infections in immunocompromised patients. Molds belonging to the Versicolores series also produce sterigmatocystin, a mycotoxin classified as potential human carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (group 2B). Here, we provide for the first time the genome of three species of the series Versicolores: Aspergillus creber, Aspergillus jensenii and Aspergillus protuberus which are the most abundant species of this series in bioaerosols. The genomes of these three species could be assembled with a percentage of completeness of 97.02%, 96.21% and 95.35% for Aspergillus creber, A. jensenii and A. protuberus respectively. These data will allow to study the genes and gene clusters responsible for the expression of virulence factors, the biosynthesis of mycotoxins and the proliferation of these ubiquitous and recurrent molds.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.20 no.8
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• pp.1201-1206
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• 2010

We performed a comparative analysis using a Real-time PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) and LC/MS (Liquid-Chromatograph/Mass Spectrometer) method in order to detect microcystin in environmental sources. Among the three different primer sets tested for microcystin using three positive strains of Microcystis aeruginosa by Real-time PCR assay, only TOX2P/TOX2M primer pairs were able to detect Microcystis aeruginosa. According to the results of a survey carried out from June 2009 to September 2009, 11 out of 11 (100%) raw water samples were were found to have microcystin when the Real-Time PCR and LC/MS method was used, with total microcystin concentration ranging from 5.98~219.0 ${\mu}g/l$. A microcystin removal treatment process was used to ensure entire removal, by passing it through a BAC filtration step. It was concluded that real-time PCR assay can be used to estimate micrucystin detection more rapidly and easily than the LC/MS method.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.595-601
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• 2010

This study was conducted to detect and identify Staphylococcus aureus, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, and Salmonella enterica subsp. using simultaneous multiplex polymerase chain reaction (multiplex PCR) assay. 23S rRNA partial gene (S. aureus), tox R gene (V. parahaemolyticus), and inv A gene (S. enterica subsp.) as diagnostic marker gene were suggested, and their amplicon sizes were 482 bp, 368 bp, and 284 bp, respectively. Non specific amplicons by STA-5F/STA-5R primer, ToxR-F/ToxR-R primer, and 139/141 primer were not observed in genomic DNA of pathogen bacteria as Bacillus cereus, Listeria monocytogenes, Escherichia coli, Proteus vulgaris, Streptococcus pyogenes, Candida albicans, and Shigella sonnei. The extracted crude DNA of targeted bacteria was detected as PCR template successfully. The detection limits were $10^5\sim10^4$ CFU/mL and 10 pg of purified genomic DNA of S. aureus, V. parahaemolyticus, and S. enterica subsp. by using simultaneous multiplex PCR.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.27 no.8
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• pp.900-906
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• 2005

The responses of two luminescence-based biosensors were studied on various heavy metals in aqueous solutions. One was recombinant E. coli ($DH5{\alpha}$/pSB311), genetically modified luminescence-based bacteria, and the other was Vibrio fisheri used for the LumisTox system. The recombinant E. coli was marked with the lux CDABE gene from multicopy plasmid, pACYC184, originally isolated from Photorhabdus luminescens. The $DH5{\alpha}$/pSB311 had a characteristic of no organic substrate for its luminescence reaction. Among the tested heavy metals Zinc and cadmium were less toxic than copper and mercury. The recombinant E. coli was more sensitive to toxicity of heavy metals than the LumisTox. The order of toxicity of the heavy metals to the recombinant E. coli was $Hg^{2+}>Cu^{2+}>Zn^{2+}>Cd^{2+}$. In case of the LumisTox, the order of the toxicity of heavy metals was $Hg^{2+}>Cu^{2+}>Cd^{2+}>Zn^{2+}$. The genetically modified luminescence-based biosensor offers a range of sensitive, rapid, and easy to use methods for assessing the potential toxicity of heavy metals in aqueous samples.

• Proceedings of the Korea Environmental Mutagen Society Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.150-150
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• 2003