• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.40-45
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• 2010

The gene encoding $\beta$-agarase (agaB) which hydrolyzes $\beta$-1,4 linkages of agarose from Zobellia galactanivorans was cloned and fused to Saccharomyces cerevisiae mating factor alpha-1 secretion signal ($MF{\alpha}1$), in which the transcription of $MF{\alpha}1$-AgaB was under the control of AOX1 (alcohol oxidase 1, methanol inducible) promoter. The constructed plasmid pPIC-AgaB (9 kb) was integrated into HIS4 gene locus of Pichia pastoris genome. Successful integration was confirmed by performing colony PCR. The transformed cells showed red halos around its colonies in methanol agar plate by adding iodine solution, indicating the active expression of agaB in P.pastoris. By SDS-PAGE and zymographic analysis, the molecular weight of $\beta$-agarase was estimated to be a 53 kDa and about 15% N-linked glycosylation was occurred. The activity of extracellular $\beta$-agarase reached 1.34, 1.42 and 1.53 units/mL by inducing 0.1, 0.5, and 1% methanol, respectively, at baffled flask culture of P.pastoris GS115/pPIC-AgaB for 48 hr. Most of the enzyme activity was found in the extacellular fraction and the secretion efficiency showed 98%. Thermostability of recombinant $\beta$-agarase was also increased by glycosylation.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.337-344
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• 2011

Integrase MJ1 from the bacteriophage ${\Phi}FC1$ carries out recombination between two DNA sequences (the phage attachment site, attP and the bacterial attachment site, attB) in NIH3T3 mouse cells. In this study, the integration vector containing attP, attB and the integrase gene MJ, was constructed. The integration mediated by integrase MJ1 in Escherichia coli led to excision of LacZ. Therefore, the frequency of integration was measured by the counting of the white colony, which is detectable on X-Gal plates. The extrachromosomal integration in NIH3T3 mouse cells was monitored by the expression of the green fluorescent protein (GFP) as a reporter. To demonstrate integration mediated integrase MJ1 in NIH3T3 cells, vectors containing attP and attB were co-transfected into NIH3T3 cells. The integration was confirmed by fluorescent microscopy. The expression of GFP was induced in NIH3T3 cells expressing MJ1 without accessory factors. By contrast, the excision mediated by the MJ1 between attR and attL had no effect on the expression of GFP. These results suggest that integrase MJ1 may enable a variety of genomic modifications for research and therapeutic purposes in higher living cells.

• 한국균학회소식:학술대회논문집
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• 2015.11a
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• pp.37-37
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• 2015

dsRNA was found in malformed cultures of Lentinula edodes strain FMRI0339, one of the three most popular sawdust cultivated commercial strains of shiitake, and was also found in healthy-looking fruiting bodies and actively growing mycelia. Cloning of the partial genome of the dsRNA revealed the presence of the RdRp sequence of a novel L. edodes mycovirus (LeV), and sequence comparison of the cloned amplicon showed an identical sequence to known RdRp genes of LeV found in strain HKA. The meiotic stability of dsRNA was examined by measuring the ratio of the presence of dsRNA among sexual monokaryotic progeny. More than 40% of the monokaryotic progeny still contained the dsRNA, indicating the persistence of dsRNA during sexual reproduction. Comparing the mycelia growth of monokaryotic progeny suggested that, although variations in the growth rate existed among progeny and virus infection was observed in highly actively growing progeny, there appeared to be a tendency toward a lower frequency of virus incidence in actively growing progeny. This study attempted to cure the edible mushroom L. edodes strain FMRI0339 of the L. edodes mycovirus (LeV) in order to obtain an isogenic virus-free fungal strain as well as a virus-infected strain for comparison. Mycelial fragmentation, followed by being spread on a plate with serial dilutions resulted in a virus-free colony. Viral absence was confirmed with gel electrophoresis after dsRNA-specific virus purification, Northern blot analysis, and PCR using reverse transcriptase (RT-PCR). Once cured, all of fungal cultures remained virus-free over the next two years. Interestingly, the viral titer of LeV varied depending on the culture condition. The titer from the plate culture showed at least a 20-fold higher concentration than that grown in the liquid culture. However, the reduced virus titer in the liquid culture was recovered by transferring the mycelia to a plate containing the same medium. In addition, oxygen-depleted culture conditions resulted in a significant decrease of viral concentration, but not to the extent seen in the submerged liquid culture. Although no $discernable phenotypic changes in colony morphology were observed, virus-cured strains showed significantly higher growth rates and mycelial mass than virus-infected strains. We were also explored effects of LeV on fruiting body formation and mushroom yield. The fruiting body formation yield of virus-free L. edodes was larger than virus-infected L. edodes. These results indicate that LeV infection has a deleterious effect on mycelial growth and fruiting body formation. In addition, we have been investigated host-parasite interaction between L. edodes and its mycovirus interaction to study viral mechanism by establishment of proteomics.

• Journal of the Society of Cosmetic Scientists of Korea
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.145-152
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• 2016

Epidermis is continuously regenerated by keratinocyte stem cells (KSCs) residing in basement membrane, which is critical to the survival of an organism. KSCs are believed to persist during the whole lifetime and generate an enormous number of keratinocytes, required for the maintenance of epidermis, through transit amplifying cells dividing definite times until they become differentiated. In this report, we have developed a phenolic compound, paeonol, purified from Moutan Cortex, as a KSC proliferation activator, by screening about 350 herbal compounds. The cell proliferation activation by paeonol is specific for KSC not for keratinocyte, and no significant difference in the expression of p63 protein, a KSC marker, in KSCs treated with paeonol was observed in FACS analysis with anti-p63 antibody. In the colony forming assay, paeonol-treated KSC showed improved colony forming activity more than 1.3 fold. In addition, the result of PCR array shows that the activity of paeonol is through several signal pathways involving stem cell functions. These results suggest that paeonol could enhance KSC proliferation activity without reduction in stemness and could be applied to cosmetics as a KSC activating ingredient.

• Journal of Apiculture
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.155-162
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• 2017

This research was carried out to evaluate the royal jelly production in Apis mellifera through the selection of superior honeybee lines. For the study, two inbred honeybee lines A and C were evaluated for the production of royal jelly by their workers, royal jelly production per colony (g), and the acceptance percentage of grafted larvae (%). The results showed that, the average royal jelly production per colony was highest ($33.7{\pm}7.41g$) in the inbred line C in comparison to other lines and the percentage of larvae acceptance ($87.8{\pm}7.5%$) was also highest in the inbred line C in comparison to other liens. The royal jelly produced by the three honeybee lines was analyzed for their trans-10-hydroxy-2-decenoic acid (10-HDA) content using a column liquid chromatography technique. Chromatographic results showed that the royal jelly produced by the inbred honeybee line C had the maximum amount of 10-HDA. We also observed age-dependent alterations of the major royal jelly proteins (MRJPs), which were differentially expressed in the two inbred lines and the commercial line, using quantitative real time-PCR (qRT-PCR).

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.141-147
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• 2012

This work describes the characteristics of $Malassezia$ $pachydermatis$ isolated from dog ear canals and the effect of essential oils on the growth of this organism. Sterile cotton swabs were used to collect specimens from the external ear canal and culture tests were performed to detect the population size of $Malassezia$ yeast. Using three different isolation media, included Sabouraud dextrose agar (SDA) to isolate common $M.$ $pachydermatis$, and SDA supplemented with olive oil (SDAO) and Leeming's medium (LM) to detect lipophilic yeast, $Malassezia$ spp were isolated from 14 of 18 dogs (77.8%); isolation rates were 33.3% in SDA, 72.2% in SDAO and 66.7% in LM media. All $Malassezia$ spp isolates were identified as $M.$ $pachydermatis$ according to results of PCR amplification, but gross colony morphology and SDA growth rates suggested four different subtypes. Large (LC) and medium colony (MC) types respectively describe large colony (diameter > 3 mm) and medium colony (around 2 mm) after 72 hour incubation, and small (SC) type refers to smaller colony (< 1 mm) even after 5 days incubation; lipid dependent colonies did not grow onto SDA. Large Colony type strains were isolated from 4, 11, and 11 samples, MC type strains from 2, 3 and 1 and SC type strains from 1, 2 and 1 in SDA, SDAO and LM, respectively. Lipid-dependent $M.$ $pachydermatis$ (Lipo) were isolated from 3 samples each in SDAO and LM. Anti-$M.$ $pachydermatis$ activity testing was done using disc-diffusion assays and well diffusion tests. Most essential oils inhibited the growth of $M.$ $pachydermatis$ in a range from 0.5% to 1.0% of essential oils. MIC90 and MIC50 were variable depending upon the nature of essential oils. Thyme oil was found to be highly effective in inhibiting the growth of $M.$ $pachydermatis$ in a range from 0.125% to 0.0625% while marjoram and then tea tree oil exhibited lower inhibitory capacity.

• Pediatric Infection and Vaccine
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.106-112
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• 2015

Purpose: The long-term administration of antibiotics interferes with bacterial culture in the middle ear fluids (MEFs) of young children with otitis media with effusion (OME). The purpose of this study is to determine whether molecular diagnostics can be used for rapid and direct detection of the bacterial pathogen in culture-negative MEFs. Methods: The specificity and sensitivity of both polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) to the lytA gene of Streptococcus pneumoniae were comparatively tested and then applied for pneumococcal detection in the clinical MEFs. Results: The detection limit of the PCR assay was approximately $10^4$ colony forming units (CFU), whereas that of LAMP was less than 10 CFU for the detection of S. pneumoniae. Both PCR and LAMP did not amplify nucleic acid at over $10^6$ CFU of H. influenzae or M. catarrhalis, both of which were irrelevant bacterial species. Of 22 culture-negative MEFs from children with OME, LAMP positivity was found in twelve MEFs (54.5%, 12/22), only three of which were PCR-positive (25%, 3/12). Our results showed that the ability of LAMP to detect pneumococcal DNA is over four times higher than that of PCR (P<0.01). Conclusions: As a high-resolution tool able to detect nucleic acid levels equivalent to <10 CFU of S. pneumoniae in MEFs without any cross-reaction with other pathogens, lytA -specific LAMP may be applied for diagnosing pneumococcus infection in OME as well as evaluating the impact of a pneumococcal conjugate vaccine against OME.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.72 no.3
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• pp.293-301
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• 2012

Background: Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) requires prompt and appropriate treatment. Since methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a frequent pathogen in VAP, rapid identification of it, is pivotal. Our aim was to evaluate the utility of quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) as a useful method for etiologic diagnoses of MRSA pneumonia. Methods: We performed qPCR for mecA, S. aureus-specific femA-SA, and S. epidermidis-specific femA-SE genes from bronchoalveolar lavage or bronchial washing samples obtained from clinically-suspected VAP. Molecular identification of MRSA was based on the presence of the mecA and femA-SA gene, with the absence of the femA-SE gene. To compensate for the experimental and clinical conditions, we spiked an internal control in the course of DNA extraction. We estimated number of colony-forming units per mL (CFU/mL) of MRSA samples through a standard curve of a serially-diluted reference MRSA strain. We compared the threshold cycle (Ct) value with the microbiologic results of MRSA. Results: We obtained the mecA gene standard curve, which showed the detection limit of the mecA gene to be 100 fg, which corresponds to a copy number of 30. We chose cut-off Ct values of 27.94 (equivalent to $1{\times}10^4$ CFU/mL) and 21.78 (equivalent to $1{\times}10^5$ CFU/mL). The sensitivity and specificity of our assay were 88.9% and 88.9% respectively, when compared with quantitative cultures. Conclusion: Our results were valuable for diagnosing and identifying pathogens involved in VAP. We believe our modified qPCR is an appropriate tool for the rapid diagnosis of clinical pathogens regarding patients in the intensive care unit.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.24 no.12
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• pp.1269-1275
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• 2014

TALEN is a newly developed gene engineering method to knock out specific genes. It contains a DNA binding domain and a Fok1 nuclease domain in the TALEN plasmid. Therefore, the engineered TALEN construct can bind to any region of genomic DNA and cut the target nucleotide, thereby inducing mutation. In this study, we constructed two TALEN constructs targeted to a protein initiation codon (DBEX2) or the 25th upstream region (DBPR25) to enable mRNA synthesis of SETDB1 HMTase. We performed the TALEN cloning in two steps. The first step was from module vectors to pFUS array vectors. We confirmed successful cloning with a colony PCR experiment and Esp31 restriction enzyme digestion, which resulted in a smear band and a 1 Kb insert band, respectively The second step of the cloning was from a pFUS array vector to a mammalian TALEN expression vector. The engineered TALEN construct was sequenced with specific primers in an expression vector. As expected, a specific array from the module vectors was shown in the sequencing analysis. The specific module sequences were regularly arrayed in every 100 bp, and SETDB1 expression totally disappeared in the TALEN-DBEX2 transfection. PCR amplification targeting of DBEX2 was performed, and the PCR product was digested with a T7E1 restriction enzyme. The expression of SETDB1 was down-regulated in the TALEN-DBPR25 transfection. Morphological changes were also observed in the two TALEN constructs with transfected HeLa cells. These results suggest that the engineered TALEN constructs in two strategic approaches are very useful to knock-out of the SETDB1 gene and to study gene function.

• IMMUNE NETWORK
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.27-33
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• 2009

Macrophages generated in vitro using macrophage-colony stimulating factor (M-CSF) and interleukin (IL)-6 from bone marrow cells (BM-Mp) are defective in antigen presenting cell (APC) function as shown by their ability to induce the proliferation of anti-CD3 mAb-primed syngeneic T cells. However, they do express major histocompatibility (MHC) class I and II molecules. accessory molecules and intracellular adhesion molecules. Here we demonstrate that the defective APC function of macrophages is mainly due to production of $TGF-{\beta}1$ by BM-Mp. Methods: Microarray analysis showed that $TGF-{\beta}1$ was highly expressed in BM-Mp, compared to a macrophage cell line, B6D. which exerted efficient APC function. Production of $TGF-{\beta}1$ by BM-Mp was confirmed by neutralization experiments of $TGF-{\beta}1$ as well as by real time-polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Results: Addition of $anti-TGF-{\beta}1$ monoclonal antibody to cultures of BM-Mp and anti-CD3 mAb-primed syngeneic T cells efficiently induced the proliferation of syngeneic T cells. Conversely, the APC function of B6D cells was almost completely suppressed by addition of $TGF-{\beta}1$. Quantitative real time-PCR analysis also confirmed the enhanced expression of $TGF-{\beta}1$ in BM-Mp. Conclusion: The defective APC function of macrophages generated in vitro with M-CSF and IL-6 was mainly due to the production of $TGF-{\beta}1$ by macrophages.