• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.42-54
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• 2019

Biodegradation of an explosive compound, glyceryl trinitrate (GTN), was studied with a denitrifying microbial culture grown in a sequencing batch reactor and a GTN acclimated denitrifying culture. The GTN acclimated culture, which were fed on GTN for 1 month, degraded GTN regioselectively via denitration on C1 position as compared to C2 position denitration by denitrifying culture that has never been exposed to GTN. Accumulation of two isomeric glyceryl dinitrates (GDNs) in both culture medium suggests that GDN denitration is the rate-limiting step in GTN biodegradation. The first order GTN degradation rate normalized to cell concentration of the acclimated culture was calculated to be 0.045 (${\pm}0.002$) L/g-hr. Increasing concentration of electron acceptor(nitrate) resulted in discouraged GTN degradation. According to microbial community analysis, prolonged GTN exposure resulted in 25% increase in the genus level of the GTN acclimated culture with the disappearance of two dominating denitrifying microbial species of Methyloversatilis universalis and Hyphomicrobium zavarzinii in the denitrifying culture.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.404-412
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• 2021

Despite the plant microbiota plays an important role in plant health, little is known about the potential interactions of the flower microbiota with pathogens. In this study, we investigated the microbial community of apple blossoms when infected with Erwinia amylovora. The long-read sequencing technology, which significantly increased the genome sequence resolution, thus enabling the characterization of fire blight-induced changes in the flower microbial community. Each sample showed a unique microbial community at the species level. Pantoea agglomerans and P. allii were the most predominant bacteria in healthy flowers, whereas E. amylovora comprised more than 90% of the microbial population in diseased flowers. Furthermore, gene function analysis revealed that glucose and xylose metabolism were enriched in diseased flowers. Overall, our results showed that the microbiome of apple blossoms is rich in specific bacteria, and the nutritional composition of flowers is important for the incidence and spread of bacterial disease.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.68-77
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• 2023

The effect of soil damage on the physicochemical characteristics and activity of the soil microbial community is not well known. This study investigates this relationship by analyzing 11 soil samples collected from various points of soil damage across Gyeonggi-do. Soil damage resulted from forest fires, landslides, and development areas, with their impacts most severe on the topsoil layer (0-30 cm). Dehydrogenase and β-glucosidase activities were notably higher at locations damaged by forest fires compared to other sites. While enzyme activities in soils influenced by landslides and development areas were relatively low, sites with a pollution history exhibited elevated dehydrogenase activity, likely due to past microbial response to the pollution. Additionally, an assessment of carbon substrate usability by soil microorganisms indicated higher substrate availability in areas impacted by forest fires, contrasting with lower availability in landslide and development sites. Statistical analysis revealed a positive correlation between organic content of sand and clay and microbial activity. These findings provide valuable insights into soil damage and associated restoration research, as well as management strategies.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.898-906
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• 2014

The objective of this study was to investigate differences in the faecal microbial composition among Lantang, Bama, Erhualian, Meishan, Xiaomeishan, Duroc, Landrace, and Yorkshire sows and to explore the possible link of the pig breed with the gut microbial community. Among the sows, the Meishan, Landrace, Duroc, and Yorkshire sows were from the same breeding farm with the same feed. Fresh faeces were collected from three sows of each purebred breed for microbiota analysis and volatile fatty acid (VFA) determination. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) analysis revealed that samples from Bama, Erhualian, and Xiaomeishan sows, which from different farms, were generally grouped in one cluster, with similarity higher than 67.2%, and those from Duroc, Landrace, and Yorkshire sows were grouped in another cluster. Principal component analysis of the DGGE profile showed that samples from the foreign breeds and the samples from the Chinese indigenous breeds were scattered in two different groups, irrespective of the farm origin. Faecal VFA concentrations were significantly affected by the pig breed. The proportion of acetate was higher in the Bama sows than in the other breeds. The real-time PCR analysis showed that 16S rRNA gene copies of total bacteria, Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes were significantly higher in the Bama sows compared to Xiaomeishan and Duroc sows. Both Meishan and Erhualian sows had higher numbers of total bacteria, Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes and sulphate-reducing bacteria as compared to Duroc sows. The results suggest that the pig breed affects the composition of gut microbiota. The microbial composition is different with different breeds, especially between overseas breeds (lean type) and Chinese breeds (relatively obese type).

• Journal of Microbiology
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.155-161
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• 2006

Comparative analysis of microbial communities in a sequencing batch reactor which performed enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) was carried out using a cultivation-based technique and 16S rRNA gene clone libraries. A standard PCR protocol and a modified PCR protocol with low PCR cycle was applied to the two clone libraries of the 16S rRNA gene sequences obtained from EBPR sludge, respectively, and the resulting 424 clones were analyzed using restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs) on 16S rRNA gene inserts. Comparison of two clone libraries showed that the modified PCR protocol decreased the incidence of distinct fragment patterns from about 63 % (137 of 217) in the standard PCR method to about 34 % (70 of 207) under the modified protocol, suggesting that just a low level of PCR cycling (5 cycles after 15 cycles) can significantly reduce the formation of chimeric DNA in the final PCR products. Phylogenetic analysis of 81 groups with distinct RFLP patterns that were obtained using the modified PCR method revealed that the clones were affiliated with at least 11 phyla or classes of the domain Bacteria. However, the analyses of 327 colonies, which were grouped into just 41 distinct types by RFLP analysis, showed that they could be classified into five major bacterial lineages: ${\alpha},\;{\beta},\;{\gamma}-$ Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, and the phylum Bacteroidetes, which indicated that the microbial community yielded from the cultivation-based method was still much simpler than that yielded from the PCR-based molecular method. In this study, the discrepancy observed between the communities obtained from PCR-based and cultivation-based methods seems to result from low culturabilities of bacteria or PCR bias even though modified culture and PCR methods were used. Therefore, continuous development of PCR protocol and cultivation techniques is needed to reduce this discrepancy.

• Journal of Veterinary Science
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.37.1-37.14
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• 2021

Background: Ticks are one of the most common external parasites in dogs, and are associated with the transmission of a number of major zoonoses, which result in serious harm to human health and even death. Also, the increasing number of pet dogs and pet owners in China has caused concern regarding human tick-borne illnesses. Accordingly, studies are needed to gain a complete understanding of the bacterial composition and diversity of the ticks that parasitize dogs. Objectives: To date, there have been relatively few reports on the analysis of the bacterial community structure and diversity in ticks that parasitize dogs. The objective of this study was to investigate the microbial composition and diversity of parasitic ticks of dogs, and assessed the effect of tick sex and geographical region on the bacterial composition in two tick genera collected from dogs in China. Methods: A total of 178 whole ticks were subjected to a 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) next generation sequencing analysis. The Illumina MiSeq platform targeting the V3-V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene was used to characterize the bacterial communities of the collected ticks. Sequence analysis and taxonomic assignment were performed using QIIME 2 and the GreenGene database, respectively. After clustering the sequences into taxonomic units, the sequences were quality-filtered and rarefied. Results: After pooling 24 tick samples, we identified a total of 2,081 operational taxonomic units, which were assigned to 23 phyla and 328 genera, revealing a diverse bacterial community profile. The high, moderate and low prevalent taxa include 46, 101, and 182 genera, respectively. Among them, dominant taxa include environmental bacterial genera, such as Psychrobacter and Burkholderia. Additionally, some known tick-associated endosymbionts were also detected, including Coxiella, Rickettsia, and Ricketssiella. Also, the potentially pathogenic genera Staphylococcus and Pseudomonas were detected in the tick pools. Moreover, our preliminary study found that the differences in microbial communities are more dependent on the sampling location than tick sex in the tick specimens collected from dogs. Conclusions: The findings of this study support the need for future research on the microbial population present in ticks collected from dogs in China.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2010

New technologies are providing unprecedented knowledge into microbial community structure and functions. Even though nucleic acid based approaches provide a lot of information, metaproteomics could provide a high-resolution representation of genotypic and phenotypic traits of distinct microbial communities. Analyzing the metagenome from different microbial ecosystems, metaproteomics has been applied to seawater, human guts, activated sludge, acid mine drainage biofilm, and soil. Although these studies employed different approaches, they elucidated that metaproteomics could provide a link among microbial community structure, function, physiology, interaction, ecology, and evolution. These approaches are reviewed here to help gain insights into the function of microbial community in ecosystems.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.194-199
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• 2010

Compost as a soil amendment is of importance in enhancing the soil chemical and microbial qualities; however, soil microbial community can vary depending on the composition, and the amount of compost applied to plant in the soil. Responses of soil microbial properties to compost applications with 0, 30, and 60 Mg $ha^{-1}$ were investigated in silt loam soils where red pepper(Capsicum annuum L.) was mainly cultivated in Yeongyang, Gyeongbuk, Korea. The analysis of phospholipid fatty acids (PLFAs) extracted from soil showed that compost amounts significantly increased PLFAs representing as bacteria, fungi, and VAM-fungi as well as the ratio of fungi/bacteria, and monounsaturated/saturated PLFAs. Increasing the amount of compost significantly increased Gram-/Gram+ PLFAs' ratio, but significantly decreased monounsaturated/saturated PLFAs' ratio. Therefore, this result shows that compost would vary to a limited extent the microbial community in red pepper field. However, increase in compost application would change the subgroup structure of microbial community only.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.96-103
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• 2007

Plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) have the potential to be used as microbial inoculants to reduce disease incidence and severity and to increase crop yield. Some of the PGPR have been reported to be able to enter plant tissues and establish endophytic populations. Here, we demonstrated an approach to screen bacterial endophytes that have the capacity to promote the growth of pepper seedlings and protect pepper plants against a bacterial pathogen. Initially, out of 150 bacterial isolates collected from healthy stems of peppers cultivated in the Chungcheong and Gyeongsang provinces of Korea, 23 putative endophytic isolates that were considered to be predominating and representative of each pepper sample were selected. By phenotypic characterization and partial 16S rDNA sequence analysis, the isolates were identified as species of Ochrobacterium, Pantoea, Pseudomonas, Sphingomonas, Janthinobacterium, Ralstonia, Arthrobacter, Clavibacter, Sporosarcina, Acidovorax, and Brevundimonas. Among them, two isolates, PS4 and PS27, were selected because they showed consistent colonizing capacity in pepper stems at the levels of $10^6-10^7CFU/g$ tissue, and were found to be most closely related to Pseudomonas rhodesiae and Pantoea ananatis, respectively, by additional analyses of their entire 16S rDNA sequences. Drenching application of the two strains on the pepper seedlings promoted significant growth of peppers, enhancing their root fresh weight by 73.9% and 41.5%, respectively. The two strains also elicited induced systemic resistance of plants against Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. vesicatoria.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.237-242
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• 2003

Sequences of industrial microbial counts of foods shows irregular fluctuating patterns as adeinition of fluctuating microbial counts(FMC). Recently, it beame clear that the FMC was considered as having a lognormal distribution as a first order approximation. Application of lognormal distribution to the industrial microbial counts could produce useful information in practice. This study is intended to verift the application method of lognormal idstribution in FMC. The one year's records for microbial counts of frozen dumplings from two companies were obtained, and the statistical analysis was carried out to estimate the frequencies of future events where counts exceeding selected levels and to compare the sanitation level of the two companies. The results showed that this spplication method enable translation of irregular recourds of microbial counts into an useful information such as te actual probalities of outburst of a given level and the quantitative predictions of potential hazards in the processing.