• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
• /
• v.14 no.3
• /
• pp.1571-1578
• /
• 2013

Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide. Recently, the demand for more effective and safer therapeutic agents for the chemoprevention of human cancer has increased. As a white rot fungus, Inonotus obliquus is valued as an edible and medicinal resource. Chemical investigations have shown that I. obliquus produces a diverse range of secondary metabolites, including phenolic compounds, melanins, and lanostane-type triterpenoids. Among these are active components for antioxidant, antitumoral, and antiviral activities and for improving human immunity against infection of pathogenic microbes. Importantly, their anticancer activities have become a hot recently, but with relatively little knowledge of their modes of action. Some compounds extracted from I. obliquus arrest cancer cells in the G0/G1 phase and then induce cell apoptosis or differentiation, whereas some examples directly participate in the cell apoptosis pathway. In other cases, polysaccharides from I. obliquus can indirectly be involved in anticancer processes mainly via stimulating the immune system. Furthermore, the antioxidative ability of I. obliquus extracts can prevent generation of cancer cells. In this review, we highlight recent findings regarding mechanisms underlying the anticancer influence of I. obliquus, to provide a comprehensive landscape view of the actions of this mushroom in preventing cancer.

• Preventive Nutrition and Food Science
• /
• v.8 no.4
• /
• pp.336-342
• /
• 2003

The effects of cultivation methods (cultivation of curled-shaped type, M-1; conventional cultivation, M-2; growing after treatment with a growth regulator, M-3; cultivation by the combination of M-1 and treatment with oak charcoal, M-4) on the quality characteristics of soybean sprouts were studied by the measurement of growth characteristics. This study also investigated the changes in shelf-life stability of the new soybean sprouts (NSB) using M-4, which was cultivated with oak charcoal and treated with antimicrobial Citrus sunki seed extract. Among the soybean sprouts grown for six days at the high temperature and humidity environment (90$\pm$5% RH, 25$\pm$1$^{\circ}C$), M-1 revealed no significant difference in terms of quality, such as the harvest yield, the rot rate and the growth characteristics when compared with M-2. M-3 showed no significant difference in growth characteristics, of hardness, and sensory evaluation scores when compared with the soybean sprouts grown by conventional methods. NSB had a low number of total microorganisms and had a better appearance after five days of storage than did the control group (M-2). These findings demonstrate that chemical-free and clean soybean sprouts can be grown by combining oak charcoal and antimicrobial Citrus sunki seed extract, thereby meeting the consumer demand for safe, chemical free sprouts.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.22 no.5
• /
• pp.674-683
• /
• 2012

A new strain, SD12, was isolated from tannery waste polluted soil and identified as Pseudomonas aeruginosa on the basis of phenotypic traits and by comparison of 16S rRNA sequences. This bacterium exhibited broad-spectrum antagonistic activity against phytopathogenic fungi. The strain produced phosphatases, cellulases, proteases, pectinases, and HCN and also retained its ability to produce hydroxamate-type siderophore. A bioactive metabolite was isolated from P. aeruginosa SD12 and was characterized as 1-hydroxyphenazine ((1-OH-PHZ) by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectral analysis. The strain was used as a biocontrol agent against root rot and wilt disease of pyrethrum caused by Rhizoctonia solani. The stain is also reported to increase the growth and biomass of Plantago ovata. The purified compound, 1-hydroxyphenazine, also showed broad-spectrum antagonistic activity towards a range of phytopathogenic fungi, which is the first report of its kind.

• Mycobiology
• /
• v.44 no.4
• /
• pp.319-324
• /
• 2016

Dieback in strawberry (Seolhyang cultivar) was first observed during the nursery season (June to September) in the Nonsan area of Korea in the years 2012 and 2013. Initial disease symptoms included dieback on runners, as well as black rot on roots, followed by wilting and eventually blackened, necrotic discoloration in the crowns of daughter plants. A fungus isolated from the diseased roots, runners, and crowns is close to Lasiodiplodia theobromae based on morphological characteristics. Analysis of a combined dataset assembled from sequences of the internal transcribed spacer and translation elongation factor 1- alpha genes grouped nine fungal isolates with the type strain of L. theobromae. The isolates showed strong pathogenicity on strawberry cultivars Kumhyang, Seolhyang, and Akihimae, fulfilling Koch's postulates. Based on these results, the pathogen responsible for dieback on strawberry plants in Korea was identified as L. theobromae.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
• /
• v.15 no.1
• /
• pp.20-30
• /
• 1977

Relationship of soil properties and seasonal variation on microbilogical population to-continuous culture and first-time culture of ginseng was investigated by bimonthly from May 1976 to January 1977. pH and P contents of 2 years continuous culture of soil were higher than other culture plot of soil, and contraty to the above, 2 years first-time culture of ginseng soil was conplot of soil, and contraty to the above, 2 years first-time culture of ginseng soil was contained more potassium contents than other culture plot of soil. In microbiological fluctuation with seasonr in various soil conditions, the population, trends of Fusarium spp., Erwiniaspp., and flourescent Psedudomonas spp. were increased in May and July in general, but decreased in the other month. It was observed that in all type of soil, Fusarium spp. was distributed in abundance in and on rihizosphere, and decreased the propagules numbers as soil depth increase. The numbers of Erwinia spp. and fluorescent Pseudo-monas spp. were distributed greater in numbers on the surface zone of soil depth decreasing the numbers along the soil layer increase, and also in 2years continuous culture of soil especially, a great numbers of Erwinia spp. and fluorescent Pseudomonas were evenly distributed in surface zone and rhizosphere. Ginseng disease with a high incidence of bacterial disease in continuous culture of 2 and 4 years was seemed to be associated with soil bacteria that was high in numbers of Erwinia spp. and fluorescent Pseudomonas spp. in May and July.

• ALGAE
• /
• v.32 no.1
• /
• pp.29-39
• /
• 2017

Geographic distributions of pathogens are affected by dynamic processes involving host susceptibility, availability and abundance. An oomycete, Pythium porphyrae, is the causative agent of red rot disease, which plagues Pyropia farms in Korea and Japan almost every year and causes serious economic damage. We isolated an oomycete pathogen infecting Pyropia plicata from a natural population in Wellington, New Zealand. The pathogen was identified as Pythium porphyrae using cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 and internal transcribed spacer of the rDNA cistron molecular markers. Susceptibility test showed that this Pythium from New Zealand was able to infect several different species and genera of Bangiales including Pyropia but is not able to infect their sporophytic (conchocelis) phases. The sequences of the isolated New Zealand strain were also identical to Pythium chondricola from Korea and the type strain from the Netherlands. Genetic species delimitation analyses found no support for separating P. porphyrae from P. chondricola, nor do we find morphological characters to distinguish them. We propose that Pythium chondricola be placed in synonymy with P. porphyrae. It appears that the pathogen of Pyropia, both in aquaculture in the northern hemisphere and in natural populations in the southern hemisphere is one species.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
• /
• v.35 no.1
• /
• pp.19-31
• /
• 2019

Bud rot (BR) is the most devastating disease affecting oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) crops in Colombia. Its causal agent, Phytophthora palmivora, initiates the infection in immature oil palm leaflets producing necrotic lesions, followed by colonization of opportunistic necrotrophs, which increases disease damage. To improve the characterization of the disease, we transformed P. palmivora using Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation (ATMT) to include the fluorescent proteins CFP-SKL (peroxisomal localization), eGFP and mRFP1 (cytoplasmic localization). The stability of some transformants was confirmed by Southern blot analysis and single zoospore cultures; additionally, virulence and in vitro growth were compared to the wild-type isolate to select transformants with the greatest resemblance to the WT isolate. GFP-tagged P. palmivora was useful to identify all of the infective structures that are commonly formed by hemibiotrophic oomycetes, including apoplastic colonization and haustorium formation. Finally, we detected cell death responses associated with immature oil palm tissues that showed reduced susceptibility to P. palmivora infection, indicating that these tissues could exhibit age-related resistance. The aim of this research is to improve the characterization of the initial disease stages and generate cell biology tools that may be useful for developing methodologies for early identification of oil palm materials resistant or susceptible to BR.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
• /
• v.46 no.2
• /
• pp.341-350
• /
• 2019

Garlic is one of the most popular seasoning bulb vegetables in Korea and is the most commonly used food ingredient. However, the cultivation areas are decreasing every year as the price drops due to imported garlic, and labor is insufficient to produce garlic by conventional methods. Cultivation requires various tasks until garlic is harvested. Seeding is one of the important and laborious tasks; thus, mechanization is necessary. When seeding garlic, the sprout should face upwards; otherwise, it may rot or produce poor quality garlic. This study investigated the extent of growth of northern- and southern-type garlic in eight different positions. The results show when the roots were not planted properly, the stems were weak, and the garlic bulbs were small. A simple garlic planter was manufactured with a crank-press mechanism to plant garlic in an upright position. Using this machine, a three-fold experiment was carried out with 100 strips of garlic. The test results showed that 99.4% of the planted garlic strips were positioned upright or close to being upright, and 0.6% failed to take root. An image processing algorithm was developed to locate the root part of the garlic, and the result showed a success rate of 81%. A future study will develop an automatic garlic upright planting system with a viewing system.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
• /
• v.46 no.1
• /
• pp.93-95
• /
• 2010

White rot fungi which have lignin degrading enzymes show high degrading activity to diverse recalcitrant compounds such as polycyclic aromatic compounds, dyes, explosives and endocrine disrupting chemicals. We have examined decolorizing activity of dyes by Phlebia tremellosa and two transformants which had genetically transformed using laccase or manganese peroxidase (MnP) gene. In case of methyl green, wild type strain showed 50% decolorization while laccase transformant (TF2-1) and MnP transformant (T5) showed more than 90% decolorization on day 3. Remazol brilliant blue R(RBBR) was decolorized up to 85% by two transformants while the wild type showed 67% decolorization on day 3. Transformants TF2-1 and T5 both showed increased laccase and MnP activity respectively during the whole growing phase.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
• /
• v.45 no.1
• /
• pp.82-85
• /
• 2009

Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) disturb animal hormonal system even at very low concentrations, and finally give harmful effects to human through the food web. A white rot fungus Phlebia tremellosa isolated in Korea, was reported to have good degrading activity against the endocrine disrupting phthalates. However, this fungus has very low manganese peroxidase (MnP) activity under various culture conditions while laccase and lignin peroxidase activities were high. We have isolated an MnP cDNA from Trametes versicolor which was involved in the degradation of EDCs, and constructed an MnP expression vector to use in the genetic transformation of P. tremellosa in order to get higher MnP producing strains. Many transformants had integrated expression vector in their chromosomal DNAs, and showed increased MnP activity. One of two transformants showed increased degradation of 4 EDCs (70${\sim}$88%) than the wild type (30${\sim}$45% degradation rates), and showed twice better removal of estrogenic activities generated by the EDCs than the wild type.