• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.37 no.8
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• pp.441-449
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• 2015

Studies on the flocculation of algae using various metal ions were carried out by measurements of optical density(OD) and zeta potential. Cyanobacteria were used as algaes. Flocculation efficiencies of cyanobacteria by an addition of metal ions were determined from OD values, and the effect of metal ions was greater in the order of $Al^{3+}$>$La^{3+}$>$Ho^{3+}$>$Fe^{2+}$>$Ca^{2+}$. Especially for trivalent metal ions, percentages of metal removed from cyanobacteria solutions on flocculation were measured, showing the same order as in flocculation efficiencies. Zeta potentials of cyanobacteria alone were measured with increasing the concentration, found to be all negative voltages, and were increased with increasing the concentration. The effect of pH on zeta potential of cyanobacteria solution was investigated. Below pH 5.5, the zeta potentials were steeply decreased with increasing pH, whereas in the range of $5.5{\leq}pH{\leq}10$ they were almost constant ($-46{\pm}1mV$) even with increasing pH. At a constant concentration of cyanobacteria ($A_{730}=0.25$), an increase in concentration of metal ions caused an increase in zeta potential of cyanobacteria solution, showing that the effect was greater in the order of $Al^{3+}$>$Ho^{3+}$>$La^{3+}{\gg}Mg^{2+}{\geq}Ca^{2+}{\gg}K^+$. At a constant metal concentration, zeta potentials were measured with increasing cyanobacteria concentration, showing that zeta potentials for $K^+$, $Mg^{2+}$ and $Ca^{2+}$ ions were negligibly changed, whereas those of $Ho^{3+}$ and $La^{3+}$ ions were decreased. Moreover, the effect of $Ho^{3+}$ ion on decreasing zeta potential was smaller than that of $La^{3+}$ ion. $Al^{3+}$ ions showed quite a different behavior that with increasing cyanobacteria concentration the zeta potentials increased and decreased thereafter. Hydrolysis of $Al^{3+}$ ions caused a difficulty to investigate coagulation or flocculation of cyanobacteria by measurement of zeta potential.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.356-361
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• 2007

Cyanobacteria are a very old group of prokaryotic organisms that produce very diverse secondary metabolites, especially non-ribosomal peptide and polyketide structures. Although some cyanobacteria produce lethal toxins such as microcystins and anatoxins, some may be useful either for development into commercial drugs or as biochemical tools. Detection of unknown secondary metabolites was carried in the present study by a screening of 98 cyanobacterial strains from Cyanobiotech GmbH in order to establish a screening process, isolate pure substances and determine their bioactivities. A degenerated polymerase chain reaction technique as molecular approaches has been used for general screening of NRPS gene and PKS gene in cyanobacteria. A putative PKS gene was detected by DKF/DKR primer in 38 strains (38.8%) and PCR amplicons resulted from a presence of NRPS gene were showed by MTF2/MTR2 primer in 30 strains (30.6%), respectively. A screening of interesting strains was performed by comparing PCR screening results with HPLC analyses of extracts. HPLC analysis for a detection of natural products was performed in extracts from biomass. 5 strains were screened for further scale-up processing. 7 pure substances were isolated from the scale-up cultures and tested for bioactivities under consideration to purity, amount and molecular weight of substances. One substance isolated from CBT 635 showed cytotoxic activity. This substance may be regarded as Microcystin LR.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.26 no.10
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• pp.1202-1206
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• 2016

Unicellular cyanobacterial strains of Subsections I and II and filamentous cyanobacterial strains of Subsection III have been shown to be polyphyletic, heterocystous strains of Subsections IV and V, both of which were previously reported to be monophyletic. In this study, the small subunit ribosomal RNA (16S rRNA) sequences of 13 strains of cyanobacteria - one strain, Oscillatoria nigro-viridis PCC7112, of the Subsection III, 6 strains including genus Anabaena, Nostoc, Tolypothrix, Calothrix and Scytonema of the Subsection IV, and 6 strains including genus Hapalosiphon, Fischerella and Chlorogloeopsis of the Subsection V - were determined. The phylogenetic analysis of cyanobacteria was carried out using the 16S rRNA sequences. The results of the phylogenetic analyses of 16S rRNA sequences, based on Neighbour-joining, maximum-parsimony, and maximum-likelihood methods, indicated that the members of Subsection IV were not monophyletic but polyphyletic. In addition, the phylogenetic results strongly indicated that the genus Scytonema in Subsection IV could be a common ancestor of heterocystous cyanobacteria in Subsection IV and V. Furthermore, the phylogenetic analyses revealed that the genus Anabaena could be phylogenetically diverse and that cyanobacterial strains in Subsection IV might be polyphyletic, whereas those in Subsection V could be monophyletic, as reported before. The results for the genus Anabaena indicate that it should be reclassified.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2022.05a
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• pp.52-52
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• 2022

남조류 (cyanobacteria)의 대량증식에 의한 녹조현상은 수질 악화 및 수중 생태계에 악영향을 끼친다. 기존 연구에서는 시아노박테리아 증식에 영향을 미칠 수 있는 다양한 요인을 식별하였다. 특히, 최근 (2020)에 수행된 한 연구는 2013년부터 2018년까지 4대 강에 위치한 16개의 지점에서수집된 세 가지 환경 변수, 수온, 유속 및 인(phosphorus)농도 데이터를 사용하여 시아노박테리아 발생에 대한 예측 모델을 개발하였으며 온도가 남조류에 발생에 대한 가장 지배적인 요인임을 시사하였다. 온실가스 배출에 의한 기온의 상승으로 특징되는 기후변화는 전 지구에 급격한 환경변화를 유발하고 있으며 이는 남조류 증식에도 영향을 줄 수 있다. 이에 본 연구에서는 한국의 4대 강에서 다년간 수집된 수온(℃) 및 녹조 (cells/㎖) 데이터에 기반하여 온도-환경변수 민감도 (scaling)를 분석함으로써 기후변화와 남조류 증식의 연관성을 판단해 보고자 한다.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.362-365
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• 2007

Cyanobacteria have been identified as one of the most promising group producing novel biochemically active natural products. Cyanobacteria are a very old group of prokaryotic organisms that produce very diverse secondary metabolites, especially non-ribosomal peptide and polyketide structures. Large multienzyme complexes which are responsible for the non-ribosomal biosynthesis of peptides are modular for the addition of a single amino acid. An activation of amino acid substrates results in an amino adenylate occuring via an adenylation domain (A-domain). A-domains are responsible for the recognition of amino acids as substrates within NP synthesis. The A-domain contains ten conserved motifs, A1 to A10. In this study, ten conserved motifs from A1 to A10 were checked regarding their amino acid sequence of the NRPS-module of Microcystis aeruginosa PCC 7806. The part of the amino acid sequence chosen was that which contained as many conserved motives as possible, and then these amino sequence were compared between other cyanobacteria to design a new degenerate primer. A new degenerate primer (A3/A7 primer) was designed to detect any putative NP synthetase region in unkwon cyanobacteria by a reverse translation of the conserved amino acid sequence and a search for cyanobacterial DNA bank.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.188-193
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• 2013

Anatoxin-a, saxitoxin and neosaxitoxin are produced by Aphanizomenon flos-aquae that is a sort of the cyanobacteria phylum. Therefore, it is not permitted for food materials in Korea. Traditionally, the classification of cyanobacteria has been based on morphological characters such as trichome width, cell size, division planes, shape, and the presence of character such as gas vacuole. But, some diagnostic features, such as gas vacuole or akinetes, can show variation with different environmental or growth conditions and even be lost during cultivation. Therefore, we developed detection method for functional foods containing Aph. flos-aquae by PCR. To design the primer, 16S rRNA region of Aph. flos-aquae, Spirulina laxissima, and Spirulina spp. registered in the GeneBank (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) have been used and for comparative analysis, BioEdit ver. 7.0.9.0. was used. As a result, we was design AFA-F1/AFA-R1 (363 bp) primer for the differentiation Aph. flos-aquae from chlorella, spirulina, green tea, and spinach. Also, it could be distinguished chlorella and spirulina products those are made to contain 1% Aph. flos-aquae.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.398-402
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• 2008

Cyanobacteria havebeen identified as one of the most promising group producing novel biochemically active natural products. Cyanobacteria are a very old group of prokaryotic organisms that produce very diverse secondary metabolites, especially non-ribosomal peptide and polyketide structures. Though many useful natural products have been identified in cyanobacterial biomass, cyanobacteria produce also extracellular proteins related with NRPS/PKS. Detection of unknown secondary metabolites in medium was carried in the present study by a screening of 98 cyanobacterial strains. A degenerated PCR technique as molecular approaches was used for general screening of NRPS/PKS gene in cyanobacteria. A putative PKS gene was detected by DKF/DKR primer in 38 strains (38.8%) and PCR amplicons resulted from a presence of NRPS gene were showed by MTF2/MTR2 primer in 30 strains (30.6%) and by A3/A7 primer in 26 strains (26.5%). HPLC analysis for a detection of natural products was performed in extracts from medium in which cyanobacteria containing putative PKS or NRPS were cultivated. CBT57, CBT62, CBT590 and CBT632 strains were screened for a production of extracellular natural products. 5 pure substances were detected from medium of these cyanobacteria.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.298-304
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• 2021

Photosynthetic conversion through cyanobacteria and microalgae is an increasingly serious concern in the global warming crisis. Many value-added substances are produced through strain improvement, and much research and development is being conducted to determine its potential as an actual industrial strain. Economic barriers throughout processing production can be overcome to produce value-added chemicals by microalgal strains. In this study, we engineered cyanobacteria strains for the photosynthetic production of squalene and confirmed the continuous cultivation of CO₂ and light conditions. The free-inducer system of gene expression was developed at the cyanobacterial strains. Then, the squalene production level and growth of the recombinant cyanobacteria were analyzed and discussed. For bio solar-cell factories, the ability to regulate genes based on the free-inducer gene expression system promotes metabolic engineering research and construction to produce value-added chemicals.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.350-357
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• 2013

Lichens are symbiotic organisms composed of fungi, algae, or cyanobacteria which are able to survive in extreme environmental conditions ranging from deserts to polar areas. Some lichen symbionts produce a wide range of secondary metabolites that have many biological activities such as antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, antitumor, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory etc. Among the symbionts of lichens, of the bacterial communities of lichen symbionts little is known. In this study, we isolated 4 microbial species from the Arctic lichen Stereocaulon spp. and evaluated their antioxidant properties using 1,1-diphenyl-2-picryl-hydrazyl assay as well as 2,2'-azino-bis(3-ethyl benzothiazoline-6-sulphonic acid) assay. Total phenolic contents and total flavonoid contents were also measured. A potent radical scavenging activity was detected in a number of the lichen extracts. Among the 4 species tested in this study, the ethyl acetate extract of Bosea vestrisii 36546(T) exhibited the strongest free radical scavenging activity, with an inhibition rate of 86.8% in DPPH and 75.2% in ABTS assays. Overall, these results suggest that lichen-bacteria could be a potential source of natural antioxidants.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.191-208
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• 2024

The peptide-type hepatotoxins microcystins (MCs) and nodularin (NOD) are secondary metabolites produced by cyanobacteria. MCs and NOD can bioaccumulate in agricultural products through toxin-contaminated water, soil, and manure and can cause human health risks through the consumption of agricultural products. As interest in the contamination of agricultural products by MCs or NOD has recently emerged, occurrence studies based on various analysis methods for agricultural products have been conducted. However, studies on agricultural products are still insufficient compared to research on drinking water and seafood. In addition, research is primarily conducted on agricultural products grown in areas where green algae occur, but not on marketed products. In the present study, we review the physicochemical properties, toxicity, analysis methods, occurrence studies, and management status of MCs and NOD in agricultural products to build a foundation for systematic monitoring and safety management.