• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.33 no.7
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• pp.501-510
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• 2011

In this study, water pollution sources of 14 major tributaries of Han river and characteristics of water quality for each target streams were evaluated based on water quality data in 2007.1-2009.12 (14 data sets) using a statistical package, SPSS-17.0. Cluster analysis over time and space for each stream resulted in 4 groups for the spatial variations in which type and density of pollution sources in the basins showed the greatest impact on grouping. Moreover, cluster analysis for the time variation in which rainfall, temperature and eutrophication were shown to contribute to the clustering, produced 2 groups, from summer to fall (July-Oct.) and from winter to early summer (Nov.-June). Four factors were found as responsible for the data structure explaining 71-90% of the total variance of the data set depending on the streams and they were organic matter, nutrients, bacterial contamination. Factor analysis showed main factors (water pollutants) changed according to the season with different pattern for each stream. This study demonstrated that water quality of each stream could produce useful outcomes when factor and pollution source of basin were evaluated together.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.193-199
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• 2016

Global warming caused from the heavy consumption of fossil fuel is one of the biggest problems to be solved. Biofuel has been gained more attention as an alternative to reduce the consumption of fossil fuel. Recently, butanol produced from the genus Clostridium has been considered as one of the promising alternatives for gasoline, fossil based fuel. Nevertheless, the lack of the genome-engineering tools for the genus Clostridium is the major hurdle for the economic production of butanol. More recently, genome engineering tools have been developed for metabolic engineering of butanol-producing Clostridium species, which includes genome scale network model and genome editing tools on the basis of mobile group II introns and CRISPR/Cas system. In this study, the genome engineering tools for butanol-producing Clostridium species have been reviewed with a brief future perspective.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2013

Potato is the 4th important crop along with rice, wheat and maize. It contains high quality of starch with relatively high content of vitamin C and protein. However, there is a nutritionally limiting factor due to a low level of sulphur-containing essential amino acid including methionine and cysteine. Recently, recombinant DNA technology and metabolic engineering with genes involved in the bio-synthetic pathway have been applied to enhance the level of these essential amino acids. In this report, it has been discussed about the current status and bottleneck on the development of transgenic potato containing high level of sulphur-containing essential amino acids.

• Journal of environmental and Sanitary engineering
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.1-7
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• 1996

Mandelic acid is the major metabolite and phenylglyoxylic acid is the minor metabolite of styrene in human. This study was conducted to investigate the correlation between exposure concentrations of styrene and concentration of the metabolites in urine The concentrations of metabolites in urine and exposure concentrations were measured in 60 workers who were occupationally exposed to styrene in FRP industry as well as paint industry and musical instrument manufacturing industry and the concentrations of metabolites in urine ware measured in 90 workers not occupationally exposed to styrene for review the background level in the unexposed population. The results obtained were as follows; 1. The mean exposure concentration is 16.6 $\pm $12.2 ppm (range 0.4-49.9ppm) in the styrene exposed workers. 2. The concentration of mandelic acid in urine collected at the end of shift from worker exposed 8 hours to 50ppm of styrene, based on extrapolation from correlation equations was 578.5 mg/g creatinine and 176.8 mg/g creatinine for next morning urine, the concentration of phenylglyoxylic acid in urine collected at the end of shift was 291.1 mg/g creatinine, 177.9 mg/g creatinine in next morning urine. In the sum of mandelic acid and phenylglyoxylic acid in the urine 870.2 mg/g creatinine in urine sampled at the end of shift corresponds to an exposure of 50ppm of styrene and 366.0 mg/g creatinine for next morning sample corresponds to 50ppm. 3. The correlation of the degree of exposed with sum concentration of mandeliacid and phenylglyoxylic acid in the urine was better(r=0.079 for end of shift, r=0.78 for next morning) than the correlation with single determinant measurement in urine(r=0.75 for mandelic acid at end of shift, r=0.73 for mandelic acid at next morning, r=0.69 for phenylglyoxylic acid at end of shift, r=0.62 for phenylglyoxylic acid at next morning). The monitoring of sum concentration of mandelic acid and phenylglyoxylic acid in urine is a valuable indicator of time weighted average daily exposure ti styrene. And the exposure standard of urinary metabolites produced by styrene should be set, in distinction urine at the end of shift from urine at next morning.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.560-565
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• 2002

A COG(clusters of orthologous groups of proteins) algorithm was used to detect conserved genes within Proteobacteria and to figure out their relationships. Restricting comparison to the sequences of 42 procaryotes, 33 eubacteria and 16 Proteobacteria, the number of conserved genes was increased. All analyzed procaryotes shared 75 COGs. COG0195, COG0358 and COG0528 were only represented by the 42 procaryotes. Sixtyfour COGs were added as conserved genes in 33 eubacteria. Each Proteobacteria group has a unique repertoire of COGs. Metabolic COGs were more diverse in the beta Proteobacteria group than in the other groups. These results could be used to determine the origins and the evolutionary relationships of Proteobacteria. The possibilities of detecting new biological molecules is high in phylogenetically related organisms, hence the identification of useful proteins by using this algorithm is possible.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.31 no.10
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• pp.839-844
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• 2009

This research investigates the importance of the microbial metabolic pathways such as denitrification, iron reduction, and methanogenesis, in the degradation of organic matters of the sediments. There are statistically significant differences( P < 0.05) in the rates of denitrification, iron reduction, and methanogenesis according to the location: Site A has no plant, Site B is dominated by Scirpus, and Site C is dominated by Phragmites. Among them, Site C showed different methanogenesis rate depending on the sediments depth. The organic matter content increased from Site A to Site C. Site A had the smallest organic matter content whereas it showed the largest denitrification rate and iron reduction rate. Site C had the largest methanogenesis rate. Denitrification is the dominant pathways based on the assumption that anaerobic degradation of organic matter is mainly carried out through denitrification, iron reduction, and methanogenesis.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.53 no.5
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• pp.509-513
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• 2021

Curcumin is known to possess diverse beneficial physiological effects including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-depressant, anti-microbial, and anti-neoplastic activities, as well as immune-modulating, metabolism-regulating, and neuroprotective effects. However, despite more than 13,000 research papers published during the last ten years regarding the health benefits of curcumin, curcumin has not been introduced in the market as a pharmaceutical agent in any country. Despite the abundance of positive findings, most investigations that tout its health benefits are based on in vitro and in vivo studies that fail to consider the protean chemical behaviors of curcumin, which is known to be a pan-assay interference compound and an invalid metabolic panacea. Therefore, human clinical trials, despite rigorous study design, have been unable to prove specific benefits. This article reviews the pleiotropic properties of curcumin so that they can be balanced against its beneficial effects and suggests potential research avenues to better understand its health benefits.

• Food Engineering Progress
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.243-248
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• 2010

The ${\beta}$-glucosidase (E.C. 3.2.1.21) production capabilities of lactic acid bacteria isolated from a variety of kimchi (fermented vegetables) were examined. When grown in a medium containing cellobiose as carbon source, most lactic acid bacteria showed significantly higher intracellular levels of ${\beta}$-glucosidase than the extracellular levels. A maximum intracellular ${\beta}$-glucosidase activity of 3.7${\pm}$0.5 (unit/mg protein) was obtained in the case of Weissella cibaria KFRI88010 isolated from kimchi. The optimum reaction conditions for W. cibaria KFRI88010 ${\beta}$-glucosidase activity were pH 5.0 and ${37^{\circ}C}$, and addition of divalent cations to the reaction mixture resulted in a notable decrease in enzyme activity. The ${\beta}$-glucosidase activity was enhanced twofold when W. cibaria KFRI88010 was grown in a medium containing fructose as compared with to a medium containing glucose or cellobiose.

• Journal of Environmental Analysis, Health and Toxicology
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.243-251
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• 2018

Pharmaceuticals in wastewater effluents have been recognized as emerging pollutants threatening freshwater organisms. To extend understanding for bioaccumulation and toxicity in those organisms, information on biotransformation products (or metabolites) and their metabolic pathway are crucial. The aim of the present study is to identify and elucidate metabolites of pharmaceuticals formed in exposed organisms using suspect and nontarget screening approach using LC-HRMS. As the target pharmaceuticals, carbamazepine, ketoprofen, metoprolol, propranolol, and verapamil were selected whereas Daphnia magna and Gammarus pulex were used as test organisms. After 24h exposure, metabolites formed in the organisms were identified using LC-HRMS. The structures of metabolites were elucidated via analysis of MS/MS fragment pattern and the comparison with fragment database. As the results, a total of 10 metabolites were identified for 5 parent compounds (C253/C356 for carbamazepine, K211 for ketoprofen, M256 for metoprolol, P218/P276/P306 for propranolol, V196/V291/V441 for verapamil). Among them, the presence of C253 and V291 was confirmed using standard materials. Most of the identified metabolites were formed through oxidative reactions such as hydroxylation, N-demethylation, and dealkylation. Cysteine conjugation (phase II reaction) metabolite (C356) for carbamazepine was found in daphnia. The metabolic pathway of verapamil showed similar metabolic pathways and metabolic pathways for both species. Although the toxicological information on the identified metabolites could not be confirmed, the molecular structure information of the proposed metabolites can be used for future evaluation and prediction of toxicity.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.327-329
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• 2023

In this study, an experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of the concentrations of tryptone, an organic nitrogen supplement, and sodium tungstate on the growth of microbial and the production of acetic acid and ethanol in the culture of Clostridium ljungdahlii. Microbial growth increased by 144.6%, and ethanol and acetic acid production improved by 8.6% and 36.7%, respectively, when 2.5 g/L of tryptone was added to the medium of the control experiment (0 g/L tryptone). In the experiment with 1 µM Na₂WO₄·2H₂O, which is 100 times higher than the condition of the medium used in the control experiment (0.01 µM Na₂WO₄·2H₂O), there was no significant difference in microbial growth or total production of C2 metabolites, but ethanol production increased and acetic acid production decreased. As a result, the ethanol/acetic acid production ratio increased significantly from 0.24 in the control experiment to 0.56.