• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.29 no.12
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• pp.1957-1968
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• 2019

Tetraselmis is a green algal genus, some of whose species are important in aquaculture as well as biotechnology. In algal culture, fluorescent lamps, traditional light source for culturing algae, are now being replaced by a cost-effective light-emitting diodes (LEDs). In this study, we investigated the effect of LED light of different wavelengths (white, red, yellow, and blue) on the growth of Tetraselmis suecica and its associated microbial community structures using the next-generation sequencing (NGS). The fastest growth rate of T. suecica was shown in the red light, whereas the slowest was in yellow. The highest OTUs (3426) were identified on day 0, whereas the lowest ones (308) were found on day 15 under red light. The top 100 OTUs associated with day 0 and day 5 cultures of T. suecica under the red and yellow LED were compared. Only 26 OTUs were commonly identified among four samples. The highest numbers of unique OTUs were identified at day 0, indicating the high degree of initial microbial diversity of the T. suecica inoculum. The red light-unique OTUs occupied 34.98%, whereas the yellow-specific OTUs accounted for only 2.2%. This result suggested a higher degree of interaction in T. suecica culture under the red light, where stronger photosynthesis occurs. Apparently, the microbial community associated with T. suecica related to the oxygen produced by algal photosynthesis. This result may expand our knowledge about the algae-bacteria consortia, which would be useful for various biotechnological applications including wastewater treatment, bioremediation, and sustainable aquaculture.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.181-187
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• 2011

The overall objective of this study is to develop the engineering-friendly-methodology which can investigate the fate of antibiotic resistance in environment microbial community. For this purpose, effective concentration (EC) concept was adopted with cultural based method which is currently used in engineering practice. When a tetracyline antibiotic was present as selective pressure agent among microbial community, activated sludge, the $EC_{50}$ and/or $EC_{90}$ of tetracycline in microbial community were statistically increased compared to control, especially higher growth rate and organic loading conditions of SBRs. Therefore, these results strongly suggested that the continuous monitoring of EC in microbial community can be used for characterizing the fate of tetracycline resistance community in environmental samples.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.31 no.8
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• pp.1163-1174
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• 2021

Casein-derived antioxidant peptides by using microbial proteases have gained increasing attention. Combination of two microbial proteases, Protin SD-NY10 and Protease A "Amano" 2SD, was employed to hydrolyze casein to obtain potential antioxidant peptides that were identified by LC-MS/MS, chemically synthesized and characterized in a oxidatively damaged HepG2 cell model. Four peptides, YQLD, FSDIPNPIGSEN, FSDIPNPIGSE, YFYP were found to possess high 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) scavenging ability. Evaluation with HepG2 cells showed that the 4 peptides at low concentrations (< 1.0 mg/ml) protected the cells against oxidative damage. The 4 peptides exhibited different levels of antioxidant activity by stimulating mRNA and protein expression of the antioxidant enzymes such as superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px), as well as nuclear factor erythroid-2-related factor 2 (Nrf2), but decreasing the mRNA expression of Kelch-like ECH-associated protein 1 (Keap1). Furthermore, these peptides decreased production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and malondialdehyde (MDA), but increased glutathione (GSH) production in HepG2 cells. Therefore, the 4 casein-derived peptides obtained by using microbial proteases exhibited different antioxidant activity by activating the Keap1-Nrf2 signaling pathway, and they could serve as potential antioxidant agents in functional foods or pharmaceutic preparation.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.22 no.10
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• pp.1324-1329
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• 2012

Phosphomannomutase (ManB) is involved in the biosynthesis of GDP-mannose, which is vital for numerous processes such as synthesis of carbohydrates, production of alginates and ascorbic acid, and post-translational modification of proteins. Here, we discovered that a deletion mutant of manB (BG101) in Streptomyces coelicolor (S. coelicolor) showed higher sensitivity to bacteriostatic chloramphenicol (CM) than the wild-type strain (M145), along with decreased production of CM metabolites. Deletion of manB also decreased the mRNA expression level of drug efflux pumps (i.e., cmlR1 and cmlR2) in S. coelicolor, resulting in increased sensitivity to CM. This is the first report on changes in antibiotic sensitivity to CM by deletion of one glycolysis-related enzyme in S. coelicolor, and the results suggest different approaches for studying the antibiotic-resistant mechanism and its regulation.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.248-259
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• 2021

BACKGROUND: Contaminated water was a major source of food-borne pathogens in various recent fresh produce-related outbreaks. This study was conducted to investigate the microbial contamination level and correlations between the level of sanitary indicator bacteria and the detection ratio of pathogens in agricultural water by logistic regression analysis. METHODS AND RESULTS: Agricultural water was collected from 457 sites including surface water (n=300 sites) and groundwater (n=157 sites) in South Korea from 2018 to 2020. Sanitary indicator bacteria (total coliform, fecal coliform, and Escherichia coli) and food-borne pathogens (pathogenic E. coli, E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella spp., and Listeria monocytogenes) were analyzed. In surface water, the coliform, fecal coliform, and E. coli were 3.27±0.89 log CFU/100 mL, 1.90±1.19 log CFU/100 mL, and 1.39±1.26 log CFU/100 mL, respectively. For groundwater, three kinds of sanitary indicators ranged in the level from 0.09 - 0.57 log CFU/100 mL. Pathogenic E. coli, Salmonella and Listeria monocytogenes were detected from 3%-site, 1.5%- site, and 0.6%-site water samples, respectively. According to the results of correlations between the level of sanitary indicator bacteria and the detection ratio of pathogens by logistic regression analysis, the probability of pathogen detection increased individually by 1.45 and 1.34 times as each total coliform and E. coli concentration increased by 1 log CFU/100mL. The accuracy of the model was 70.4%, and sensitivity and specificity were 81.5% and 51.7%, respectively. CONCLUSION(S): The results indicate the need to manage the microbial risk of agricultural water to enhance the safety of fresh produce. In addition, logistic regression analysis is useful to analyze the correlation between the level of sanitary indicator bacteria and the detection ratio of pathogens in agricultural water.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.14 no.12
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• pp.1163-1170
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• 2005

The microbial adsorption characteristics of two different media for biological treatment were studied using attached diverse microbes onto activated carbon and ceramic. The results in the experiments of the characteristics of physical adhesion on two different media with addition of high and low concentrated substrate in the culture were observed that the efficient of adhesion onto F-400 activated carbon was higher over that of ceramic due to the surface area of media. The irradiation treatment by ultrasonication with 400 W power and 3 min retention time on the media without addition substrate conditions and subsequent mixing throughly the culture showed the highest efficiency of cell detachment on the media. Three different microbes, P. ovalis, A calcoaceticus, and B. subtillis were used for the study of the characteristics of microbial adhesion on the media. p ovalis showed the highest adhesion capability while B. subtillis showed the lowest capability adhesion onto media either addition of substrate in the culture. The mixed bacterial culture showed $10\%$ lower removal efficiency of DOC in the low concentrated substrate culture compared to the single pure culture. Whileas, it did not show significant difference between two cultures at high concentrated substrate. It was also observed same population density of microorganism by counting of microbes adhered to microbial media with an ultrasound treatment.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.195-199
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• 1994

Immunostimulation effects of the cell wall components isolated from Lactobacillus plantarum were investigated by studying the macrophage s tumorcidal activity, splenocyte proliferation, anticomplementary activity and the inhibition of peritoneal tumor cell growth measured with ICR mice inoculated with sarcoma 180. The immunopotentiating cell wall components were a complex of peptidoglycan and exopolysaccharides. The tumorcidal activity of macrophage against Yacl and B16 tumor cells was enhanced when the cell wall components were added into the macrophage s culture medium. They also stimulated splenocytes to proliferate up to the same level as when the concanavalin A was added into the splenocyte's culture medium. The complementary activity was inhibited by 50% when the cell wall components were incubated with the sheep red blood cells treated with hemolysin and guinea pig complement. This result confirmed that the cell wall components had an antitumor effect, because the anticomplementary activity is usually accompanied by an antitumor activity at the same time. This fact was confirmed again by the inhibition of the growth of sarcoma 180 when the cell wall components were injected intraperitoneally into ICR mice inoculated with sarcoma 180. As a result, it is concluded that the cell wall components isolated from Lactobacillus plantarum had multifunctional immunostimulation effects in vitro and in vivo.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.57-63
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• 2003

Using fungal (Fusarium solani f. pisi) and bacterial (Pseudomonas mendocina) cutinases, the initial hydrolysis rate of p-nitrophenyl esters was systematically estimated for a wide range of enzyme and substrate concentrations using a 96-well microplate reader. Both cutinases exhibited a high substrate specificity; i.e. a high hydrolytic activity on p-nitrophenyl butyrate (PNB), yet extremely low activity on p-nitrophenyl palmitate (PNP). When compared to the hydrolysis of PNB and PNP by other hydrolases [lipases and esterases derived from different microbial sources, such as bacteria (Pseudomonas cepacia, Psedomonas furescens, Baciilus stearothermophilus), molds (Aspeillus niger, mucor miehei), and yeasts (Candida rugosa, Candida cylindracea)], the above substrate specificity would seem to be a unique characteristic of cutinases. Secondly, the hydrolytic activity of the cutinases on PNB appeared much faster than that of the other hydrolytic enzymes mentioned above. Furthermore, the current study proved that even when the cutinases were mixed with large amounts of other hydrolases (lipases or esterases), the Initial hydrolysis rate of PNB was determined only by the cutinase concentration for each PNB concentration. This property of cutinase activity would seem to result from a higher accessibility to the substrate PNB, compared with the other hydrolytic enzymes. Accordingly, these distinct properties of cutinases may be very useful in the rapid and easy isolation of various natural cutinases with different microbial sources, each of which may provide a novel industrial application with a specific enzymatic function.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.46-50
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• 1989

A high concentration of inorganic phosphate (above 25 mM), which was suboptimal for vegetative growth in the minimal production medium, suppressed cephalosporin C (CPC) production in Cephalosporium acremonium. Results from the determination of intracellular concentrations of ATP, ADP and AMP with phosphate-starved resting cells indicated that phosphate exerted its effect indirectly by regulating the ratio of adenylated nucleotides, the so-called adenylated energy charge. It was also found that the type of phosphate regulation of CPC biosynthesis was not a repression effect but an inhibition effect.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.441-451
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• 2016

Squalene is a linear triterpene formed via the MVA or MEP biosynthetic pathway and is widely distributed in bacteria, fungi, algae, plants, and animals. Metabolically, squalene is used not only as a precursor in the synthesis of complex secondary metabolites such as sterols, hormones, and vitamins, but also as a carbon source in aerobic and anaerobic fermentation in microorganisms. Owing to the increasing roles of squalene as an antioxidant, anticancer, and anti-inflammatory agent, the demand for this chemical is highly urgent. As a result, with the exception of traditional methods of the isolation of squalene from animals (shark liver oil) and plants, biotechnological methods using microorganisms as producers have afforded increased yield and productivity, but a reduction in progress. In this paper, we first review the biosynthetic routes of squalene and its typical derivatives, particularly the squalene synthase route. Second, typical biotechnological methods for the enhanced production of squalene using microbial cell factories are summarized and classified. Finally, the outline and discussion of the novel trend in the production of squalene with several updated events to 2015 are presented.