• Journal of Microbiology
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.345-353
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• 2005

The complex ecosystem of intestinal micro flora is estimated to harbor approximately 400 different microbial species, mostly bacteria. However, studies on bacterial colonization have mostly been based on culturing methods, which only detect a small fraction of the whole microbiotic ecosystem of the gut. To clarify the initial acquisition and subsequent colonization of bacteria in an infant within the few days after birth, phylogenetic analysis was performed using 16S rDNA sequences from the DNA iso-lated from feces on the 1st, 3rd, and 6th day. 16S rDNA libraries were constructed with the amplicons of PCR conditions at 30 cycles and $50^{\circ}C$ annealing temperature. Nine independent libraries were produced by the application of three sets of primers (set A, set B, and set C) combined with three fecal samples for day 1, day 3, and day 6 of life. Approximately 220 clones ($76.7\%$) of all 325 isolated clones were characterized as known species, while other 105 clones ($32.3\%$) were characterized as unknown species. The library clone with set A universal primers amplifying 350 bp displayed increased diversity by days. Thus, set A primers were better suited for this type of molecular ecological analysis. On the first day of the life of the infant, Enterobacter, Lactococcus lactis, Leuconostoc citreum, and Streptococcus mitis were present. The largest taxonomic group was L. lactis. On the third day of the life of the infant, Enterobacter, Enterococcus faecalis, Escherichia coli, S. mitis, and Streptococcus salivarius were present. On the sixth day of the life of the infant, Citrobacter, Clostridium difficile, Enterobacter sp., Enterobacter cloacae, and E. coli were present. The largest taxonomic group was E. coli. These results showed that microbiotic diversity changes very rapidly in the few days after birth, and the acquisition of unculturable bacteria expanded rapidly after the third day.

• Journal of Microbiology
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• v.43 no.5
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• pp.430-436
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• 2005

In this study, the prevalence and quantity of a latent pseudorabies virus (PrV) infection in the nervous tissues of randomly selected pigs was determined via nested and real-time PCR. The nervous tissues, including the trigeminal ganglion (TG), olfactory bulb (OB), and brain stem (BS), were collected from the heads of 40 randomly selected pigs. The majority of the nervous tissues from the selected pigs evidenced a positively amplified band on nested PCR. In particular, nested PCR targeted to the PrV glycoprotein B (gB) gene yielded positive results in all of the BS samples. Nested PCR for either the gE or gG gene produced positive bands in a less number of nervous tissues ($57.5\%$ and $42.5\%$, respectively). Real-time PCR revealed that the examined tissues harbored large copy numbers of latent PrV DNA, ranging between $10^{0.1}\;and\;10^{7.2}(1-1.58{\times}10^7)$ copies per $1{\mu}g$ of genomic DNA. Real-time PCR targeted to the PrV gE gene exhibited an accumulated fluorescence of reporter dye at levels above threshold, thereby indicating a higher prevalence than was observed on the nested PCR ($100\%$ for BS, $92\%$ for OB, and $85\%$ for TG). These results indicate that a large number of farm-grown pigs are latently infected with a field PrV strain with a variety of copy numbers. This result is similar to what was found in association with the human herpes virus.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.54 no.3
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• pp.254-265
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• 2018

Avian influenza recently damaged the poultry industry, which suffered a huge economic loss reaching billions of U.S. dollars in South Korea. Transmission routes of the pathogens would help plan to control and limit the spread of the devastating biological tragedy. Phylogenetic analyses of pathogen's DNA sequences could sketch transmission trees relating hosts with directed edges. The last decade has seen the methodological development of inferring transmission trees using epidemiological as well as genetic data. Here, I reanalyzed the DNA sequence data that had originated in the highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N8 outbreak of South Korea in 2014. The H5N8 viruses spread geographically contiguously from the origin of the outbreak, Jeonbuk. The Jeonbuk origin viruses were known to spread to four provinces neighboring Jeonbuk. I estimated the transmission tree of the host domestic and migratory wild birds after combining multiple runs of Markov chain Monte Carlo using a Bayesian method for inferring transmission trees. The estimated transmission tree, albeit with a rather large uncertainty in the directed edges, showed that the viruses spread from Jeonbuk through Chungnam to Gyeonggi. Domestic birds of breeder or broiler ducks were estimated to appear to be at the terminal nodes of the transmission tree. This observation confirmed that migratory wild birds played an important role as one of the main infection mediators in the avian influenza H5N8 outbreak of South Korea in 2014.

• Korean Journal of Plant Tissue Culture
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.147-152
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• 1998

AL1-gene, necessary for the replication of the genome of a gemini virus TGMV, was inserted in the opposite direction to the promoter CaMV35S resulting in the construction of a plant transformation binary vector pAR35-2. The vector pAR35-2 contains the chimeric gene cassette involving the duplicated promoter CaMV35S, opposite direction of AL1-gene fusioned with hygromycin resistant gene, and the gene cassette of the neomycin phosphotransferase II gene. The plasmid was transferred to tobacco and tomato plants by leaf disk infection via Agrobacterium. The transgenic plants were selected and grown on the MS-agar medium containing kanamycin and hygromycin. The shoots induced from the calli were regenerated to the whole transgenic plants. The antisense AL1-gene was detected in the genomic DNA isolated from the leaves by using the PCR mediated Southern blot analysis. The expression of the antisense AL1-gene was also observed using the RT-PCR mediated Southern blot analysis. The observation of chloroplasts in guard cell pair indicated that the transgenic tomato plants were diploid.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.207-212
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• 1998

In the present study, genomic DNAs were purified from Korean isolates (KT8, KT6, KT-Kim and KT-Lee) and foreign strains (CDC85, IR78 and NYH 286) of 1Trichomonas voslnalis, and hybridized with a probe based on the repetitive sequence cloned from T. uqfinolis to observe the genetic differences. By Southern hybridization, all isolates of T. uoSinoLis except the NYH386 strain had 11 bands. Therefore all isolates examined were distinguishable into 3 groups according to their banding patterns; i) KT8, KT6 and KT-Kim isolates had 11 identical bands such as 1 kb, 1.2 kb, 1.6 kb, 1.9 kb, 2.3 kb. 27 kb, 3.2 kb, 2.4 kb, 3.8 kb, 4.9 kb and 6.0 kb, ii) The metronidazole-resistant IR78 strain had the some bands as KT-Lee isolate at bands of 1 kb, 1.2 kb, 1.6 kb. 1.8 kb, 2.1 kb, 2.5 kb, 2.7 kb, 2.9 kb, 3.4 kb, 5.0 kb and 6.0 kb, Bands of CDC85, metronidazole-resistant strain, were similar to those of IR78 and KT-Lee, except that 3.2 kb replaced 2.9 kb. iii) NYH286 particularly had 12 bands and bun patterns were similar to IR78 with a few exceptions as follows; i) 6.2 kb in place of 6.0 kb, ii) 2.0 kb and 2.2 kb instead of 2.1 kb. Through the results obtained, genetic variance of T. uoginnlis isolates was demonstrated by Southern hybridization.

• Korean Journal of Plant Tissue Culture
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.283-288
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• 1998

The bialaphos is a potent inhibitor of glutamine synthease in higher plants and is used as a non-selective herbicide. We have used the bialaphos resistant gene(Bar) encoding for an acetyltransferase isolated from Streptomyces hygroscopicus SF1293. Callus derived from mature seeds of rice(Oryza sativa L. cv. Dong Jin) were co-cultivated with Agrobacterium tumefaciens EHA101 carring a plasmid pGPTV-HB containing genes for hygromycin resistance (HygR) and Bar. Transgenic plants showing in vitro resistance to 50 mg/L hygromycin and 10 mg/L bialaphos were obtained by using a two-step selection/regeneration procedure. Transformation efficiency of rice was about 30% which was as high as reported in other dicotyledons. Progenies ($\textrm{T}_{1}$ generation) derived from primary transformant of 17 lines were segregated with a 3 resistant : 1 sensitive ratio in medium containing hygromycin and bialaphos. Stable integration of Bar gene into chromosomal DNA was proven by Southern blot analysis of genomic DNA isolated from $\textrm{T}_{2}$ progenies. Transgenic plants ($\textrm{T}_{3}$) grown in the field were resistant to bialaphos (Basta) at a dosage lethal to wild type plants.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Life Science Conference
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• 2001.06a
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• pp.67-86
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• 2001

A strain producing strongly fibrinolytic enzyme was isolated from soil and was identified to be Bacillus subtilis by biochemical and physiological characterization. The optimal culture conditions for the production of fibrinolytic enzyme was determined to be 1.0% tryptone, 1.5% soluble starch, 0.5% Peptone, 0.5% NaCl, $(NH_{4})_{3}PO_4.3H_{2}O, and MgSO_{4}.7H_{2}O.$ Initial pH and temperature were pH 8.0 and $30^{\circ}C$ , respectively, The highest enzyme production was observed at 30 hours of cultivation at $30^{\circ}C$ The fibrinolytic enzyme was purified to homogeneity by DEAE Sephadex A-50 ion exchange column chromatography, 70% ammonium sulfate precipitation, Sephadex G-200 and G-75 gel filtration column chromatography. The molecular weight of the purified enzyme was 28,000 as determined by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. A gene encoding the fibrinolytic enzyme was cloned into a plasmid vector pBluescript, transforming E.coli XL-1 Blue. The clone was able to degrade fibrin, This indicated that the gene could encode a fibrinolytic enzyme. The nucleotide sequence of the 2.7 kb insert was determined in both direction. One open reading frame composed of 1023 nucleotides was found to be a potential protein coding region. There was the putative Shine-Dalgano sequence and TATA box upstream of the open reading frame. The homology search data in the genome database showed that both the 2.7 kb insert and 1 kb open reading frame carried no significance in the nucleotide sequence of known fibrinolytic enzyme from Bacillus serovars. The recombinant cell harboring the novel gene involved in fibrinolysis was subjected to protein purification. The molecular mass of the purified fibrinolytic enzyme was determined to be 31864 Dalton, which was highly in accordance with the molecular mass(33 kDa) of the fibrinolytic gene deduced from the insert. The fibrinolytic enzyme was Purified 50.5 folds to homogeneity in overall yield of 10.7% by DEAE Sephadex A-50 ion exchange, 85% ammonium sulfate precipitation, Sephadex G-50, Superdex 75 HR FPLC gel filtration. In conclusion, a novel fibrinolytic gene from Bacillus subtilis was identified and characterized by cloning a genomic library of Bacillus subtilis into pBleuscript. For the soybean fermented by this strain, it is found that there increased assistant protein about 20% compared to the soybean not fermented and increased about 30% according to amino acid analysis and, in particular, essential amino acid increased about 40%. When keeping this fermented soybean powder at room temperature for about 70days, it showed very high stability maintaining almost perfect activity and, therefore, it gave us great suggestion its possibility of development as a new functional food.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.17 no.5 s.85
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• pp.671-677
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• 2007

This study was performed to investigate the effect of the water-extract from non-fermented or fermented Chaga mushrooms (Inonotus obliquus) on the proliferation and apoptosis of the NIH3T3 mouse normal fibroblast cells and various human cancer cell lines including HCT-15 human colon carcinoma, AGS human gastric carcinoma, MCF-7 human breast adenocarcinoma, Hep3B human hepatocellular carcinoma and HeLa human cervical carcinoma using MTT(3-[4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl] -2,5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide) assay and DNA fragmentation. In an anti-cancer test using various human cancer cells, fermented Chaga mushroom extract showed higher antiproliferating effect than that of non-fermented Chaga mushroom extract. Mouse normal NIH3T3 cells were exhibited 80% above survival under fermented or non-fermented Chngn mushroom extract of various concentrations(0, 0.5 and 1 mg/ml). Fermented Chaga mushroom extract significantly inhibited cell growth on HCT-15 cells in a dose-dependent manner. HCT-15 cells treated with non-fermented or fermented Chaga mushrooms extract produced a distinct oligonucleosomal ladder with different sizes of DNA fragments, a typical characteristic of cells undergoing apoptosis. These results suggest that fermented Chaga mushroom extract suppresses growth of HCT-15 human colon carcinoma cells through apoptosis.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.435-440
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• 2008

Random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers were used to identify the genetic diversities among and within varieties and landraces of Rehmannia glutinosa. Polymorphic and reproducible bands were produced by 10 primers out of total 20 primers used in the experiment. In RAPD analysis of the 11 genotypes, 64 fragments out of 73 amplified genomic DNA fragments were polymorphic which represented an average 6.4 polymorphic fragments per primer. Number of amplified fragments with random primers ranged from 2 (OPA-1) to 13 (OPA-11) and varied in size from 200 bp to 1,400 bp. Especially, OPA-10, OPA-11 and OPA-19 primers showed specific bands for varieties of Korea Jiwhang and Jiwhang il ho, which could be useful for discriminating from other varieties and landraces of R. glutinosa. Percentage polymorphism ranged from a minimum of 50% (OPA-1) to a maximum of 100% (OPA-11), with an average of 87.7%. Similarity coefficients were higher in the genotypes of Korea Jiwhang and Jiwhang il ho than in other populations. In cluster analysis, genotypes of Korea Jiwhang, Jiwhang il ho, and Japanese accession were separated from those of other varieties and landraces. Average of genetic diversity within the population $(H_S)$ was 0.110, while average of total genetic diversity $(H_T)$ was 0.229. Across all RAPD makers the $G_{ST}$ value was 0.517, indicating that about 52% of the total genetic variation could be explained by RAPDs differences while the remaining 48% might be attributable to differences among samples. Consequently, RAPD analysis was useful method to discriminate different populations such as domestic varieties and other landraces. The results of the present study will be used to understand the population and evolutionary genetics of R. gllutinosa.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.190-196
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• 2013

The sea squirt, Halocynthia roretzi, has experienced mass mortality due to softness syndrome. The identification of disease-induced genes can provide insights into the development of this syndrome. To identify the genes, we performed differentially expressed gene (DEG) analysis. The expression of the phosphoglycerate kinase (HrPGK) gene was significantly decreased in diseased sea squirts compared to normal ones. We confirmed the result of the DEG analysis through RT-PCR and real-time PCR. In addition, we detected single nucleotide polymorphisms at position -106 (A/T) and -254 (G/T) in the HrPGK gene promoter by genotyping analysis. At the -106 site of the HrPGK gene, the frequency of the AA allele in disease-resistant sea squirts was about two-fold higher than that of sensitive ones, and the frequency of the TT allele in the disease-resistant sea squirts was about six-fold lower. At the -254 site of the HrPGK gene, the frequency of the GT and the GG allele was approximately two-fold higher and two-fold lower, respectively, in the disease-resistant sea squirts compared to the disease-sensitive ones. Analysis of the relationship between the genotypic variation at the -106/-254 promoter and the expression of HrPGK mRNA showed that HrPGK mRNA expression was higher in the -106/-254 AA/GT genotype samples than in the -106/254 TT/GG genotype ones. These results show that sea squirts harboring the AA/GT genotype may have more resistance to mortality than the sea squirts with other genotypes.