• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• 제50권2호
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• pp.103-111
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• 2012

Intestinal giant-cystic disease (IGCD) of the Israel carp (Cyprinus carpio nudus) has been recognized as one of the most serious diseases afflicting inland farmed fish in the Republic of Korea, and Thelohanellus kitauei has been identified as the causative agent of the disease. Until now, studies concerning IGCD caused by T. kitauei in the Israel carp have been limited to morphological and histopathological examinations. However, these types of diagnostic examinations are relatively time-consuming, and the infection frequently cannot be detected in its early stages. In this study, we cloned the full-length 18S rRNA gene of T. kitauei isolated from diseased Israel carps, and carried out molecular identification by comparing the sequence with those of other myxosporeans. Moreover, conventional PCR and real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR) using oligonucleotide primers for the amplification of 18S rRNA gene fragment were established for further use as methods for rapid diagnosis of IGCD. Our results demonstrated that both the conventional PCR and real-time quantitative PCR systems applied herein are effective for rapid detection of T. kitauei spores in fish tissues and environmental water.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• 제20권1호
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• pp.51-57
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• 2015

As expected, the expression of denitrifying genes in a Typha wetland (relatively stagnant compared to other ponds), showing higher nitrogen removal efficiency in summer, was affected by temperature. The abundance and gene transcripts of nitrate reductase (narG), nitrite reductase (nirS), nitric oxide reductase (norB), and nitrous oxide reductase (nosZ) genes in seasonal sediment samples taken from the Acorus and Typha ponds of free surface flow constructed wetlands were investigated using quantitative polymerase chain reaction (Q-PCR) and quantitative reverse transcription PCR (Q-RT-PCR). Denitrifying gene copy numbers ($10^5-10^8$ genes $g^{-1}$ sediment) were found to be higher than transcript numbers-($10^3-10^7$ transcripts $g^{-1}$ sediment) of the Acorus and Typha ponds, in both seasons. Transcript numbers of the four functional genes were significantly higher for Typha sediments, in the warm than in the cold season, potentially indicating greater bacterial activity, during the relatively warm season than the cold season. In contrast, copy numbers and expression of denitrifying genes of Acorus did not provide a strong correlation between the different seasons.

• KSBB Journal
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• 제29권5호
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• pp.361-371
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• 2014

Mycoplasma is well recognized as one of the most prevalent and serious microbial contaminants of biologic manufacturing processes. Conventional methods for mycoplasma testing, direct culture method and indirect indicator cell culture method, are lengthy, costly and less sensitive to noncultivable species. In this report, we describe a new TaqMan probe-based real-time PCR method for rapid and quantitative detection of mycoplasma contamination during manufacture of biologics. Universal mycoplasma primers were used for mycoplasma PCR and mycoplasma DNA was quantified by use of a specific TaqMan probe. Specificity, sensitivity, and robustness of the real-time PCR method was validated according to the European Pharmacopoeia. The validation results met required criteria to justify its use as a replacement for the culture method. The established real-time PCR assay was successfully applied to the detection of mycoplasma from human keratinocyte and mesenchymal stem cell as well as Vero cell lines artificially infected with mycoplasma. The overall results indicated that this rapid, specific, sensitive, and robust assay can be reliably used for quantitative detection of mycoplasma contamination during manufacture of biologics.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• 제19권3호
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• pp.34.1-34.6
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• 2021

Digital PCR (dPCR) is the third-generation PCR that enables real-time absolute quantification without reference materials. Recently, global diagnosis companies have developed new dPCR equipment. In line with the development, the Lab On An Array (LOAA) dPCR analyzer (Optolane) was launched last year. The LOAA dPCR is a semiconductor chip-based separation PCR type equipment. The LOAA dPCR includes Micro Electro Mechanical System that can be injected by partitioning the target gene into 56 to 20,000 wells. The amount of target gene per wells is digitized to 0 or 1 as the number of well gradually increases to 20,000 wells because its principle follows Poisson distribution, which allows the LOAA dPCR to perform precise absolute quantification. LOAA determined region of interest first prior to dPCR operation. To exclude invalid wells for the quantification, the LOAA dPCR has applied various filtering methods using brightness, slope, baseline, and noise filters. As the coronavirus disease 2019 has now spread around the world, needs for diagnostic equipment of point of care testing (POCT) are increasing. The LOAA dPCR is expected to be suitable for POCT diagnosis due to its compact size and high accuracy. Here, we describe the quantitative principle of the LOAA dPCR and suggest that it can be applied to various fields.

• International Journal of Oral Biology
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• 제41권3호
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• pp.149-154
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• 2016

The purpose of this study was to develop Streptococcus sobrinus-specific qPCR primers based on the nucleotide sequence of the RNA polymerase ${\beta}-subunit$ gene (rpoB). The specificity of the primers was determined by conventional polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with 12 strains of S. sobrinus and 50 strains (50 species) of non-S. sobrinus bacteria. The sensitivity of the primers was determined by quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) with serial dilutions of the purified genomic DNAs (40 ng to 4 fg) of S. sobrinus ATCC $33478^T$. The specificity data showed that the S. sobrinus-specific qPCR primers (RTSsob-F4/RTSsob-R4) detected only the genomic DNAs of S. sobrinus strains with a detection limit of up to 4 fg of S. sobrinus genomic DNA. Our results suggest that the RTSsob-F4/RTSsob-R4 primers are useful in detecting S. sobrinus with high sensitivity and specificity for epidemiological studies of dental caries..

• 미생물학회지
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• 제49권3호
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• pp.270-274
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• 2013

서양뒤영벌(Bombus terrestris)은 꿀벌의 봉군붕괴증후군(colony collapse disorder)에 대한 대체 화분매개곤충으로서 농업분야에서 중요한 역할을 하고 있다. 최근 서양뒤영벌에서 바이러스, 세균, 응애 등의 여러 병원체와 기생체가 발견되었고, 이들은 서양뒤영벌의 수명과 생식력 등에 영향을 주는 것이 알려져 있다. 서양뒤영벌 야외개체군에서 Nosema spp.를 탐지하기 위해, 서양뒤영벌 성충으로부터 genomic DNA를 추출하여 Nosema spp. 유전자들에 대해 polymerase chain reaction (PCR)을 수행하였다. 이들 유전자 중에서 small subunit ribosomal RNA (SSU rRNA) 유전자만이 증폭되었고, 염기서열분석을 통해 N. ceranae로 확인된 것은 조사된 야외개체군에서 N. ceranae가 서양뒤영벌의 주된 감염체임을 보여준다. Quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR)을 이용하여 SSU rRNA 유전자를 탐지하기 위해, 먼저 PCR을 통해 SSU rRNA 유전자의 2개 영역에 대한 유전자 특이적 증폭을 확인하였다. qRT-PCR을 이용하여 각 개체에서 얻은 genomic DNA의 순차적인 농도희석를 통해 $0.85ng/{\mu}l$ 이하의 genomic DNA 농도에서도 SSU rRNA 유전자가 성공적으로 증폭되는 것이 확인되었다. 이러한 실험 결과, qRT-PCR를 이용한 N. ceranae 특이 유전자 증폭은 서양뒤영벌의 병원체 감염 진단 뿐만 아니라 생태계 위해성 평가에도 활용될 수 있을 것으로 사료된다.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• 제27권4호
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• pp.301-309
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• 2011

The filamentous fungus Fusarium graminearum is an important cereal pathogen. Although quantitative realtime PCR (qRT-PCR) is commonly used to analyze the expression of important fungal genes, no detailed validation of reference genes for the normalization of qRT-PCR data has been performed in this fungus. Here, we evaluated 15 candidate genes as references, including those previously described as housekeeping genes and those selected from the whole transcriptome sequencing data. By a combination of three statistical algorithms (BestKeeper, geNorm, and NormFinder), the variation in the expression of these genes was assessed under different culture conditions that favored mycelial growth, sexual development, and trichothecene mycotoxin production. When favoring mycelial growth, GzFLO and GzUBH expression were most stable in complete medium. Both EF1A and GzRPS16 expression were relatively stable under all conditions on carrot agar, including mycelial growth and the subsequent perithecial induction stage. These two genes were also most stable during trichothecene production. For the combined data set, GzUBH and EF1A were selected as the most stable. Thus, these genes are suitable reference genes for accurate normalization of qRT-PCR data for gene expression analyses of F. graminearum and other related fungi.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• 제25권11호
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• pp.1928-1935
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• 2015

Microbial growth kinetics is often used to optimize environmental processes owing to its relation to the breakdown of substrate (contaminants). However, the quantification of bacterial populations in the environment is difficult owing to the challenges of monitoring a specific bacterial population within a diverse microbial community. Conventional methods are unable to detect and quantify the growth of individual strains separately in the mixed culture reactor. This work describes a novel quantitative PCR (qPCR)-based genomic approach to quantify each species in mixed culture and interpret its growth kinetics in the mixed system. Batch experiments were performed for both single and dual cultures of Pseudomonas putida and Escherichia coli K12 to obtain Monod kinetic parameters (μ_max and K_s). The growth curves and kinetics obtained by conventional methods (i.e., dry weight measurement and absorbance reading) were compared with that obtained by qPCR assay. We anticipate that the adoption of this qPCR-based genomic assay can contribute significantly to traditional microbial kinetics, modeling practice, and the operation of bioreactors, where handling of complex mixed cultures is required.

• 한국물환경학회지
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• 제34권1호
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• pp.46-56
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• 2018

A mcyB-specific Ultra-Rapid quantitative PCR was developed for the quantitative detection of Microcystis aeruginosa, which is often a dominant species in green tide. McyB-specific UR-qPCR was optimized under extremely short times of each step in thermal cycles, based on the specific primers deduced from the mcyB in microcystin synthetase of M. aeruginosa. The M. aeruginosa strain KG07 was used as a standard for quantification, after the microscopic counting and calculation by mcyB-specific UR-qPCR. The water samples from the river water with the Microcystis outbreak were also measured by using both methods. The $1.0{\times}10^8$ molecules of mcyB-specific DNA was recognized inner 4 minutes after beginning of UR-qPCR, while $1.0{\times}10^4$ molecules of mcyB-specific templates was detected inner 7 minutes with quantitative manner. From the range of $1.0{\times}10^2$ to $1.0{\times}10^8$ initial molecules, quantification was well established based on $C_T$ using mcyB-specific UR-qPCR (Regression coefficiency, $R^2=0.9977$). Between the numbers of M. aeruginosa cell counting under microscope and calculated numbers using mcyB-specific UR-qPCR, some differences were often found. The reasons for these differences were discussed; therefore, easy compensation method was proposed that was dependent on the numbers of the cell counting. Additionally, to easily extract the genomic DNA (gDNA) from the samples, a freeze-fracturing of water-sample using liquid nitrogen was tested, by excluding the conventional gDNA extraction method. It was also verified that there were no significant differences using the UR-qPCR with both gDNAs. In conclusion, the mcyB-specific UR-qPCR that we proposed would be expected to be a useful tool for rapid quantification and easy monitoring of M. aeruginosa in environmental water.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• 제8권2호
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• pp.182-184
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• 1998

PCR was used for quantitative counting of Bifidobacterium spp. in a sample mixed with Lactobacillus acidophilus using two primer sets; one set for universal priming and the other set for Bifidobacterium specific priming. DNA products from two independent PCRs with DNA extracted from the mixed sample were found to be easily distinguishable from each other by agarose gel electrophoresis. The concentrations of PCR products correlated with the total number of bacteria and with the number of Bifidobacterium spp. present in the sample.