• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.291-298
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• 2008

Methylmercury, an organic derivative, is the principal form of mercury that biomagnifies and causes neurodegenerative symptoms in animals. In recent years, living modified organism (LMO) resulting from biotechnology has played a highly visible and controversial role. Despite the potential benefits of this technology, public concerns have been raised about the environmental risk of LMO. The concern on the risk from LMO release has urged efforts to evaluate and manage the risks of the LMO. To build up the capacity building of risk assessment method for LMO used environmental remediation, we engineered Solanum nigrum L, expressing the modified bacterial gene, merB, encoding organomercurial lyase. Two independently isolated transgenic lines produced merB RNA. Transgenic Solanum nigrum leaf discs expressing merB gene showed organic mercury resistance, forming shoots well on growth medium containing $0.5{\mu}M$ methylmercury (II) chloride and $1{\mu}M$ phenylmercuric acetate while control plants breached. Transgenic merB seeds germinated and grew on growth medium containing $2{\mu}M$ methylmercury (II) chloride and phenylmercuric acetate. The merB transgenic plants will be used for risk assessment of natural environment.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.20 no.9
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• pp.1319-1326
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• 2007

Fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase (FBP1) is a key regulatory enzyme of gluconeogenesis that catalyzes the hydrolysis of fructose-1,6-bisphosphate to generate fructose-6-phosphate and inorganic phosphate. Deficiency of fructose-1, 6-bisphosphatase is associated with fasting hypoglycemia and metabolic acidosis. The enzyme has been shown to occur in bacteria, fungi, plants and animals. The bovine FBP1 gene was cloned and characterized in this study. The full length (1,241 bp) FBP1 mRNA contained an open reading frame (ORF) encoding a protein of 338 amino acids, a 63 bp 5' untranslated region (UTR) and a 131 bp 3' UTR. The bovine FBP1 gene was 89%, 85%, 82%, 82% and 74% identical to the orthologs of pig, human, mouse, rat and zebra fish at mRNA level, and 97%, 96%, 94%, 93% and 91% identical at the protein level, respectively. This gene was broadly expressed in cattle with the highest level in testis, and the lowest level in heart. An intronic single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) (A/G) was identified in the $5^{th}$ intron of the bovine FBP1 gene. Genotyping of 133 animals from four beef breeds revealed that the average frequency for allele A (A-base) was 0.7897 (0.7069-0.9107), while 0.2103 (0.0893-0.2931) for allele B (G-base). Our preliminary association study indicated that this SNP is significantly associated with traits of Average Daily Feed Intake (ADFI) and Carcass Length (CL) (p<0.01). In addition, the FBP1 gene was assigned on BTA8 by a hybrid radiation (RH) mapping method.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.829-835
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• 2000

The ptsH and ptsI genes of Lactococus lactis subsp. lactis ATCC 7962 (L. lactis 7962), encoding the general proteins of phosphotransferase system (PTS) components, HPr and enzyme I, respectively, were cloned and characterized. A 1.3 kb PCR product was obtained using a primer set that was hybridized to the internal region of the L. lactis 7962 pts HI genes and then subcloned into a low-copy number vector, pACYC184. The 5' upstream and 3' downstream region from the 1.3 kb fragment were subsequently clone using the chromosome walking method. The complete ptsHI operon was constructed and the nucleotide sequences determined. Two ORFs corresponding to HPr (88 amino acids) and enzyme I (575 amino acids) were located. The ptsHI genes of L. lactis 7962 showed a very high homology (84-90%) with those genes from other Gram-positive bacteria. A primer extension analysis showed that the transcription started at either one of two adjacent bases upstream of the start codon. Using a Northern analysis, two transcripts were detected; the first, a 0.3 kb transcript corresponding to ptsH and the second, a 2 kb transcript corresponding to ptsH and ptsI. The transcription level of ptsH was higher than that of ptsI. The concentration of the ptsH transcript in cells grown on glucose was similar to that in cells grown on lactose, yet higher than that in cells grown on galactose. The ptsI transcript was scarcely detected in cell grown on lactose or galactose. The ptsI transcript was scarcely detected in cells grown on lactose or galactose. The results of a sequence analysis and Northern blot confirmed that the ptsH and ptsI genes of L. lactis 7962 were arranged in an operon like other known ptsHI genes and the expression of the ptsHI genes was regulated at the transcriptional level in response to the carbon source.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.455-463
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• 2005

Resistance to isoniazid (INH), which is one of the most important drugs in Mycobacterium tuberculosis chemotherapy, has been associated with mutations in genes encoding the mycobacterial catalse-peroxidase (katG), the enoyl acyl carrier protein (ACP) reductase (inhA), alkyl hydroperoxide reductase (ahpC), beta-ketoacyl acyl carrier protein synthase (kasA), and NADH dehydrogenase (ndh). In this study, we examined INH-resistance related genes in 50 INH-resistant and 24 INH-susceptible isolates by PCR-sequence analysis. In brief, mutations at the katG gene were found at codon 315 alone (2/50), at codon 463 alone (19/50), and both at 315 and 463 (29/50). However, while mutations at codon 315 were only detected in INH-resistant isolates, mutations at codon 463 were also detected in INH-susceptible isolates indicating mutations at 463 alone do not seem to confer resistance to INH. Similar to the case of katG 463, some of inhA mutations were also found among INH-susceptible isolates. For example, whereas mutations at 8 upstream of the start codon (UPS) and 15 UPS of the inhA gene were detected only in INH-resistant isolates, mutations at 101, 115, and 125 UPS were detected only in INH-susceptible isolates. Many different kinds of mutations were detected in INH­resistant isolates at ahpC, oxyR gene, and intergenic region of the oxyR-ahpC genes. Howerver, the mutations were not found oxyR and the intergenic regions in INH-susceptible isolates. No mutations were found at either kasA or at ndh gene among INH-resistant isolates. In conclusion, some of mutations such as katG 315, inhA promotor region, and oxyR-ahpC seem to be strongly related to INH-resistance. Currently we are developing a molecular diagnostic method based on these results.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.146-151
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• 2012

Urinary tract infection (UTI) is one of the most common bacterial infections and is predominantly caused by uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC). UPEC strains generally possess several genes encoding virulent factors, which are mostly adhesins, toxins, bacteriocin and siderophores. E. coli is composed of four main phylogenetic group (A, B1, B2, D) and virulent extra-intestinal strains mainly belong to groups B2 and D. Prescription of ciprofloxacin, a kind of fluoroquinolone group antibiotics, is increasing now a days, but resistance to this drug is also increasing. A total of 188 strains of E. coli were collected. Thirteen strains were collected from healthy students in 2011 and 175 strains from patients with urinary tract infection in 2010. Virulence factor genes (papC, fimG/H, sfaD/E, hlyA, cnf1, and usp) were amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) methods for phylogenetic group (A, B1, B2, D) detection. Ciprofloxacin susceptibility test was performed by disk diffusion method. The identified virulence factors (VFs), phylogenetic groups and ciprofloxacin resistance in 13 E. coli strains isolated from healthy students were papC (15.4%), fimG/H (76.9%), sfaD/E (30.8%), hlyA (23.1%), cnf1 (23.1%), usp (7.7%), phylogenetic group A (23%), B1 (8%), B2 (46%), D (23%) and ciprofloxacin resistance (7.7%), while those of in 175 E. coli strains isolated from patients with UTI were papC (41.1%), fimG/H (92.5%), sfaD/E (30.3%), hlyA (10.3%), cnf1 (30.3%), usp (27.4%), phylogenetic group A (9.1%), B1 (5.1%), B2 (60.6%), D (25.1%) and ciprofloxacin resistance (29.7%). In this study, 10 out of 13 E. coli strains (76.9%) from healthy students were found to possess more than one virulence factor associated with adhesion. In addition, one E. coli strain isolated from healthy students who had never been infected with UPEC showed ciprofloxacin resistance. According to these results between the virulence factors and phylogenetic groups it was closely associated, and UPEC strains isolated from patients showed high level of ciprofloxacin resistance.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartB
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• v.9B no.3
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• pp.351-358
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• 2002

Video compression based on DCT (Discrete Cosine Transform) has weakpoints of blocking artifacts and pixel loss when the resolution is changed. DWT (Discrete Wavelet Transform) based method can overcome such problems. In SAMCoW (Scalable Adaptive Motion Compensation Wavelet), one of wavelet based video coding algorithm, both intra frames and motion compensated error frames are encoded using EZW(Embedded Zerotree Wavelet) algorithm. However the property of wavelets transform coefficients of motion compensated error frames are different from that of still images. Signal energy is not highly concentrated in the lower bands which is true for most still image cases. Signal energy is rather evenly distributed over all frequency bands. This paper suggests a new video coding algorithm utilizing these properties. Spatial band coding which is known to be very effective for encoding images with relative1y high frequency components and not utilizing the interband coefficients correlation is applied instead of EZW to encode both intra and inter frames. In spatial band coding, the position and value of significant wavelet coefficients in each band are progressively transmitted. Unlike EZW, inter band coefficients correlations are not utilized in spatial band coding. It has been shown that spatial band coding gives better performance than EZW when applied to wavelet based video compression.

• Journal of Advanced Navigation Technology
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.69-79
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• 2013

In this paper, DCT(Discrete Cosine Transform) and CAVLC(Context Adaptive Variable Length Coding) are co-designed as hardware IP with software operation of the other modules in H.264/AVC codec. In order to increase the operation speed, a new method using SHIFT table is proposed. As a result, enhancement of about 16(%) in the operation speed is obtained. Designed Hardware IPs are downloaded into Virtex-4 FX60 FPGA in the ML-410 development board and H.264/AVC encoding is performed with Microblaze CPU implemented in FPGA. Software modules are developed from JM13.2 to make C code. In order to verify the designed Hardware IPs, Modelsim program is used for functional simulation. As a result that all Hardware IPs and software modules are downloaded into the FPGA, improvement of processing speed about multiples of 16 in case of DCT hardware IP and multiples of 10 in case of CAVLC compared with software-only processing. Although this paper deals with co-design of H/W and S/W for H.264, it can be utilized for the other embedded system design.

• Journal of KIISE:Information Networking
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.235-242
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• 2008

To improve video quality and coding efficiency, H.264/AVC adopted an adaptive rate control. But this method has a problem as it cannot predict an accurate quantization parameter(QP) for the first frame. The first QP is decided among four constant values by using encoder input parameters. It does not consider encoding bits, results in significant fluctuation of the image quality and decreases the average quality of the whole coded sequence. In this paper, we propose a new algorithm for the first frame QP decision in the H.264/AVC encoder. The QP is decided by the existing algorithm and the first frame is encoded. According to the encoded bits, the new initial QP is decided. We can predict optimal value because there is a linear relationship between encoded bits and the new initial QP. Next, we re-encode the first frame using the new initial QP. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm not only achieves better quality than the state of the art algorithm, but also adopts a rate control forthe sequence that was impossible with the existing algorithm. By reducing fluctuation, subjective quality also improved.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.327-334
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• 2016

Recently, antimicrobial resistance of pathogenic bacteria has been increasing due to excessive use of antimicrobial agents in both humans and livestock. PCR amplification and nucleotide sequence analyses were conducted to investigate16S ribosomal RNA methyltransferase (RMTase) genes and integrons in P. mirabilis strains isolated from clinical specimens and chickens in an area of the Chungcheong providence. In addition, clonality analysis of P. mirabilis strains was performed using a repetitive extragenic palindromic sequence-based PCR (REP-PCR) method. Of the total 38 P. mirabilis isolates, 7 (18.4%) strains were isolated from clinical specimens contained in the RMTase genes and showed resistance to amikacin, tobramycin, and gentamicin. A total of 23 (60.5%) isolates carried class 1 integrons, but no isolates in our study harbored class 2 and class 3 integrons. Class 1 integrons detected in our study harbored genes encoding resistance to aminoglycosides (aadA2, aadA5, aadA7, and aacCA5), ${\beta}$-lactams ($bla_{PSE}$), erythromycin (ereA), lincosamides (linF), and trimethoprim (dfrA12, dfrA17, and dfrA32). We confirmed that the RMTase genes had spread among only the P. mirabilis isolates from clinical specimens, but class 1 integrons had widely disseminated among P. mirabilis isolates from clinical specimens and chickens. In addition, identical REP-PCR banding patterns were evidenced in only P. mirabilis isolates from chickens. Our results suggest the horizontal spreading of P. mirabilis isolates in the chicken farm. To prevent further spreading of antimicrobial resistant genes among P. mirabilis isolates, monitoring and clinical policing will be required.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.11 no.12
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• pp.60-70
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• 2011

Conventional content management systems are independently developed for a specific field in general. Therefore usage of contents for the CMS will be limited to the corresponding CMS field. These characteristics might reveal a defect that CMS could not support effectively in exchange and sharing of information between CMSs. On the other hand, metadata standardization shows big differences in method and representation for the fields of CMS because all metadata standardizations are variously performed according to applications of them. There are lots differences that make interoperability between CMSs impossible. In this paper, we propose a novel metadata schema based on METS(metadata encoding and transmission standard) so that metadata standardization can be fulfilled in reality and solved the problem of duplicated contents created from different CMSs. This framework of integrated metadata proposed here can offer an interoperability between contents created by different CMSs, and discard duplicated contents. As a result of the proposed technology, we obtain 0.5% duplication rate from traditional 10.3%. In addition the filtering ability of duplicated contents shows from 92% to 96%, which proves the effectiveness and stability of the proposed technology.