• Journal of the Korean Society of Tobacco Science
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.136-143
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• 1999

This study was conducted to evaluate the degradation characteristics of waste cigarette filters under 0, 5, 10, and 15cm in depth from soil surface by environmental conditions. Weather was the most important factor during degradation of waste cigarette filters in this study. Bulking of cellulose acetate filaments exposed on soil surface was observed after 2 months, but the form of filter was kept up after 12 months. The treated cigarette filters in soil landfill revealed a little different degradation pattern at each soil landfill depth, The sample in 5cm depth of soil was more degraded then other site. A fluffy appearance of cellulose acetate filaments in the control filter rods was also developed more strongly in soil landfill then on soil surface. From the observation of waste cigarette filters by scanning electron microscopy, much degradation of the fiber of waste cigarette filters could be ascertained in soil landfill. The weight of waste cigarette filters under 5cm from soil surface was reduced about 50%, and the tensile strength of the samples in soil surface and under 5cm from soil surface were reduced 66.0% and 92.4%, respectively. The microbial experiment date that the viable cell number in microbial population and cellulolytic microorganisms showed the maximum values under 5cm from soil surface, suggest that microorganisms in soil play an important roll in the degradation of acetate cigarette filters.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Applied Microbiology Conference
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• 1977.10a
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• pp.191-192
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• 1977

Microbial degradation of unnatural synthetic substances are interesting from hypothesis that a new metabolic pathway should be established from the unnatural compound to a common metabolic intermediate fro such an ability. The establishment of a new pathway essentially require a creature of new enzyme active on the unnatural synthetic compound which have never existed on the each.(중략)

• The Korean Journal of Ecology
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.277-282
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• 1998

The microbial degradation of $poly-{\beta}-hydroxybutyrate$ (PHB) films was studied in soil microco는 incubated at a constant temperature of 2, 10, 20, 30 and $40^{\circ}C$ for up to 49 days. The degradation rate measured through loss of weight was enhanced by incubation at a higher temperature. At the soil temperature $40^{\circ}C$, $poly-{\beta}-hydroxybutyrate$ was rapidly degraded at a decay rate of 3.5% weight loss per day. The degradation of $poly-{\beta}-hydroxybutyrate$ did not affected significantly the chemical properties of soils such as pH and electric conductivity. However, microbial activity of soil in terms of dehydrogenase activity was increased by the degradation of $poly-{\beta}-hydroxybutyrate$.

• YAKHAK HOEJI
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.280-285
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• 1987

There are three plausible bioconversion pathways in biodegradation mechanism of capsaicinoids; first, side chain degradation through $\omega$-hydroxylation and $\beta$-oxidation, secondly, aromatic ring hydroxylation, and lastly, hydrolysis on the acidaraide linkage. In microbes, it was reported that capsaicin and its synthetic, analog, nonoylvanillylamide(NVA), could be metabolized to N-vanillylcarbamoylbutyric acid via $\omega$-hydroxylation and consecutive $\beta$-oxidations by Aspergillus niger. In order to broaden the scope of microbial degradation of capsaicinoids, over thirty strains of various fungi including Aspergillus, Penicillum, Mycotypha, Gliocladium, Paecilomyces, Byssoclamys, Conidiobolus, Thamnidium, and Entomophthora. It was observed that almost all the strains examined oxidized, the side chain of capsaicids as A. niger did. These observations strongly support the notion that side chain degradation is the most dominant pathway in the microbial degradation of capsaicinoids.

• Journal of Adhesion and Interface
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.19-25
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• 2006

Since the enzymatic degradation of microbial poly(hydroxylalkanoate)s (PHAs), such as poly[(R)-3-hydroxybutyrate] and poly[(R)-3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate] initially occurs by a surface erosion process, their degradation behaviors can be controlled by the change of surface property. In order to control the rate of enzymatic degradation, plasma modification technique was applied to change the surface property of microbial PHAs. The surface hydrophobic and hydrophilic properties of PHA films were introduced by $CF_3H$ and $O_2$ plasma exposures, respectively. The enzymatic degradation was carried out at $37^{\circ}C$ in 0.1 M potassium phosphate buffer (pH 7.4) in the presence of an extracellular PHB depolymerase purified from Alcaligenes facalis T1. The results showed that the significant retardation of initial enzymatic erosion of $CF_3H$ plasma-treated PHAs was observed due to the hydrophobicity and the enzyme inactivity of the fluorinated surface layers while the erosion rate of $O_2$ plasma-treated PHAs was not accelerated.

• 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.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.509-516
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• 2010

This study investigates characteristics of diesel degradation and variations of microbial community with the soil enrichment cultures. The cultures has yellow(YE-5) and transparent color's(WH-5) colony on solid plate medium. The bacillus type of YE-5 and WH-5 cultures showed diesel degradation at the rate of 99.07mg-Diesel/$L{\cdot}day$ and 57.82mg-Diesel/$L{\cdot}day$ in the presence of 1%(v/v) initial diesel concentration. Diesel degradation was 1.7 times faster than WH-5 culture. YE-5 or WH-5 culture could degrade a wide range of diesel compounds from $C_8$ to $C_24$. Microbial community analysis by PCR-DGGE technique shows that Psedomonas, Klebsiella, Escherichia and Stenotrophomonas as proteobacteria take role on the diesel degradation. uncultured Senotrophomonas sp. was only detected with YE-5 culture. It is concluded that proper combination of the microorganism should be present to stimulate the degradation of diesel and further studies are recommended for the effect of uncultured Senotrophomonas sp. or Escherichia hermannii on diesel degradation.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.126-132
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• 2012

A cellulose-degrading composite microbial system containing a mixture of microbes was previously shown to demonstrate a high straw-degrading capacity. To estimate its potential utilization as an inoculant to accelerate straw biodegradation after returning straw to the field, two cellulose-degrading composite microbial systems named ADS3 and WSD5 were inoculated into wheat straw-amended soil in the laboratory. The microbial survival of the inoculant was confirmed by a denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) analysis, whereas the enhancement of straw degradation in soil was assessed by measuring the mineralization of the soil organic matter and the soil cellulase activity. The results indicated that most of the DGGE bands from ADS3 were detected after inoculation into straw-amended autoclaved soil, yet only certain bands from ADS3 and WSD5 were detected after inoculation into straw-amended non-autoclaved soil during five weeks of incubation; some bands were detected during the first two weeks after inoculation, and then disappeared in later stages. Organic matter mineralization was significantly higher in the soil inoculants ADS3 and WSD5 than in the uninoculated controls during the first week, yet the enhanced degradation did not persist during the subsequent incubation. Similar to the increase in soil organic matter, the cellulase activity also increased during the first week in the ADS3 and WSD5 treatments, yet decreased during the remainder of the incubation period. Thus, it was concluded that, although the survival and performance of the two inoculants did not persist in the soil, a significant enhancement of degradation was present during the early stage of incubation.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.32 no.12
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• pp.1561-1572
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• 2022

Plastic pollution has been recognized as a serious environmental problem, and microbial degradation of plastics is a potential, environmentally friendly solution to this. Here, we analyzed and compared microbial communities on waste plastic films (WPFs) buried for long periods at four landfill sites with those in nearby soils to identify microbes with the potential to degrade plastics. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy spectra of these WPFs showed that most were polyethylene and had signs of oxidation, such as carbon-carbon double bonds, carbon-oxygen single bonds, or hydrogen-oxygen single bonds, but the presence of carbonyl groups was rare. The species richness and diversity of the bacterial and fungal communities on the films were generally lower than those in nearby soils. Principal coordinate analysis of the bacterial and fungal communities showed that their overall structures were determined by their geographical locations; however, the microbial communities on the films were generally different from those in the soils. For the pulled data from the four landfill sites, the relative abundances of Bradyrhizobiaceae, Pseudarthrobacter, Myxococcales, Sphingomonas, and Spartobacteria were higher on films than in soils at the bacterial genus level. At the species level, operational taxonomic units classified as Bradyrhizobiaceae and Pseudarthrobacter in bacteria and Mortierella in fungi were enriched on the films. PICRUSt analysis showed that the predicted functions related to amino acid and carbohydrate metabolism and xenobiotic degradation were more abundant on films than in soils. These results suggest that specific microbial groups were enriched on the WPFs and may be involved in plastic degradation.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.897-904
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• 2007

The aim of this paper is to discuss the methodology of our investigation of the dynamics of protein degradation and the total in situ protealytic activity in meso/eutrophic, eutrophic, and hypereutrophic freshwater environments. Analysis of the kinetics and rates of enzymatic release of amino acids in water samples preserved with sodium azide allows determination of the concentrations of labile proteins $(C_{LAB})$, and their half-life time $(T_{1/2})$. Moreover, it gives more realistic information on resultant activity in situ $(V_{T1/2})$ of ecto- and extracellular proteases that are responsible for the biological degradation of these compounds. Although the results provided by the proposed method are general y well correlated with those obtained by classical procedures, they better characterize the dynamics of protein degradation processes, especially in eutrophic or hypereutrophic lakes. In these environments, processes of protein decomposition occur mainly on the particles and depend primarily on a metabolic activity of seston-attached bacteria. The method was tested in three lakes. The different degree of eutrophication of these lakes was clearly demonstrated by the measured real proteolytic pattern and confirmed by conventional trophic state determinants.