• Membrane Journal
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.404-414
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• 2012

In order to investigate $SO_2$ removal, PEI hollow fiber membranes were produced by a dry-wet phase inversion method. The membrane support layer on surface was coated with PEBAX1657$^{(R)}$ and PEG blending materials. Modules were prepared for the single gas permeation characteristics of composite membrane according to temperature and pressure. As a result, $SO_2$ permeance and $SO_2/N_2$ selectivity were 220~1220 GPU and 100~506 through operating condition, respectively. Moreover, $SO_2/CO_2/N_2$ mixture gas was used to compare the performance of separation properties according to temperature, pressure and retentate flow rate difference. $SO_2$ removal efficiency was increased with pressure and temperature.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.189-193
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• 2009

The present work was attempted to improve the performance for the removal of water from ethanol/water mixtures through the ion-exchanged zeolite membrane in which $Na^{+}$ ion was substituted to either $K^{+}$ or $Ca^{2+}$ ion. The membranes were ion-exchanged with 0.5 mole/L aqueous solution of either KCl or $CaCl_2$ at $80^{\circ}C$ for 4 hrs. In case of the ion-exchanged membrane in which $Na^{+}$ ion was substituted to $K^{+}$ ion, the total flux was decreased from $900\;g/m^2{\cdot}hr{\sim}2,500\;g/m^2{\cdot}hr$ to $600\;g/m^2{\cdot}hr{\sim}2,000\;g/m^2{\cdot}hr$ and the separation factor was increased from $600{\sim}2,200$ to $850{\sim}2,500$ compared to the NaA type zeolite membrane. And in case of the ion-exchanged membrane in which $Na^{+}$ ion is substituted to $Ca^{2+}$ ion, both the total flux and selectivity of water showed the similar tendency compared to the NaA type zeolite membrane. It is thought that the improved separation would be possible if the pore size of the zeolite membrane is controlled by the ion exchange.

• Korean Journal of Medicinal Crop Science
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.393-400
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• 2016

Background: This study was conducted to investigate the effects of germination temperature, storage container and storage temperature on Scrophularia buergeriana and Scrophularia takesimensis seeds. Methods and Results: Seed lengths of both species were 0.8 mm, while seed width differed, with S. buergeriana measuring 0.5 mm and S. takesimensis measuring 0.4 mm. The seeds of S. buergeriana were packaged in paper containers under room temperature ($15^{\circ}C$), cold temperature ($4^{\circ}C$), and freeze temperature ($-20^{\circ}C$). These seeds exhibited around 80% germination rate at temperatures between $15^{\circ}C$ and $30^{\circ}C$. The germiantion rate of S. takesimensis, on the other hand, differed significantly at different germination temperatures. Seeds of S. takesimensis which were packaged in vinyl and paper containers and stored under room and cold temperatures, exhibited around 80% germination rate at $15^{\circ}C$. However, the germination rate of freeze-stored seeds were decreased to lower than 20% at germination temperatures of $15^{\circ}C$, $25^{\circ}C$ and $30^{\circ}C$ germiantion conditions. The rate of germination showed a low positive to a significantly negativie correlation with the other factor that were determined to evaluate the germination performance. Conclusions: This study elucidates the most suitable germination and storage conditions to increase the germination rate for the two species of Scrophularia buergeriana and Scrophularia takesimensis needs to be stored in paper containers under cold temperature and requires a temperature of $20^{\circ}C$ for germination. On the other hand, S. takesimensis in vinyl containers need to be stored at room temperature and those in paper containers at cold temperature, and a temperature of $15^{\circ}C$ is required for germination.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.242-247
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• 2003

Murine encephalomyocarditis virus (EMCV) has been used as a surrogate for hepatitis A virus (HAV) for the validation of virus removal and/or inactivation during the manufacturing process of biopharmaceuticals. Recently international regulation for the validation of HAV safety has been reinforced because of the reported cases of HAV transmission to hemophiliac patients who had received ntihemophilic factors prepared from human plasma. The purpose of the present study was to compare the resistance of HAV and EMCV to various viral inactivation processes and then to standardize the HAV validation method. HAV was more resistant than EMCV to pasteurization (60oC heat treatment for 10 hr), low pH incubation (pH 3.9 at 25oC for 14 days), 0.1 M NaOH treatment, and lyophilization. EMCV was completely inactivated to undetectable levels within 2 hr of pasteurization, however, HAV was completely inactivated to undetectable levels after 5 hr treatment. EMCV was completely inactivated to undetectable levels within 15 min of 0.1 M NaOH treatment, however, residual infectivity of HAV still remained even after 120 min of treatment. The log reduction factors achieved during low pH incubation were 1.63 for HAV and 3.84 for EMCV. Also the log reduction factors achieved during a lyophilization process of antihemophilic factor VIII were 1.21 for HAV and 4.57 for EMCV. These results indicate that HAV rather than EMCV should be used for the virus validation study and the validation results obtained using EMCV should be precisely reviewed.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.166-172
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• 2007

ERM proteins transfer the methyl group to $A_{2058}$ in 23S rRNA, which reduces the affinity of MLS (macrolide-lincosamide-streptogramin B) antibiotics to 23S rRNA, thereby confer the antibiotic resistance on micro-organisms ranging from antibiotic producers to pathogens and are classified into monomethyltransferase and dimethyltransferase. To investigate the differences between mono- and dimethyltransferase, tirD, a representative monomethylase gene was cloned in Escherichia coli from Streptomyces fradiae which contains ermSF, dimethylase gene as well to overexpress the TlrD for the first time. T7 promoter driven expression system successfully overexpress tlrD as a insoluble aggregate at $37^{\circ}C$ accumulating to around 55% of the total cell protein but unlike ErmSF, culturing at temperature as low as $18^{\circ}C$ did not make insoluble aggregate of protein into soluble protein. Coexpression of Thioredoxin and GroESL, chaperone was not helpful in turning into soluble protein either as in case of ErmSF. These results might suggest that differences between mono- and dimethylase could be investigated on the basis of the characteristics of protein structure. However, a very small amount of soluble protein which could not be detected by SDS-PAGE conferred antibiotic resistance on E. coli as in ErmSF which was expected from the activity exerted by monmethylase in a cell.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.192-199
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• 2012

Microalgal biotechnology has gained prominence because of the ability of microalgae to produce value-added products including biodiesel through photosynthesis. However, carbon and nutrient source is often a limiting factor for microalgal growth leading to higher input costs for sufficient biomass production. Use of municipal wastewater as a low cost alternative to grow microalgae as well as to treat the same has been demonstrated in this study using mini raceway open ponds. Municipal wastewater was collected after primary treatment and microalgae indigenous in the wastewater were encouraged to grow in open raceways under optimum conditions. The mean removal efficiencies of TN, TP, COD-$_{Mn}$, $NH_3$-N after 6 days of retention time was 80.18%, 63.56%, 76.34%, and 96.74% respectively. The 18S rRNA gene analysis of the community revealed the presence of Chlorella vulgaris and Scenedesmus obliquus as the dominant microalgae. In addition, 16S rRNA gene analysis demonstrated that Rhodobacter, Luteimonas, Porphyrobacter, Agrobacterium, and Thauera were present along with the microalgae. From these results, it is concluded that microalgae could be used to effectively treat municipal wastewater without aerobic treatment, which incurs additional energy costs. In addition, municipal wastewater shall also serve as an excellent carbon and nitrogen source for microalgal growth. Moreover, the microalgal biomass shall be utilized for commercial purposes.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.193-198
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• 2008

ErmSF is one of the proteins which are produced by Streptomyces fradiae to avoid suicide by its autogenous macrolide antibiotic, tylosin and one of ERM proteins which are responsible for transferring the methyl group to $A_{2058}$ (Escherichia coli coordinate) in 23S rRNA, which reduces the affinity of MLS (macrolide-lincosamide-streptogramin B) antibiotics to 23S rRNA, thereby confers the antibiotic resistance on microorganisms ranging from antibiotic producers to pathogens. ErmSF contains an extra N-terminal end region (NTER), which is unique to ErmSF and 25% of amino acids of which is arginine known well to interact with RNA. Noticeably, arginine is concentrated in $^{58}RARR^{61}$ and functional role of each arginine in this motif was investigated through deletion and site-directed mutagenesis and the activity of mutant proteins in cell R60 and R61 was found to play an important role in enzyme activity through the study with deletion mutant up to R60 and R61. With the site-directed mutagenesis using deletion mutant of 1 to 59 (R60A, R61A, and RR60, 61AA), R60 was found more important than R61 but R61 was necessary for the proper activity of R60 and vice versa. And these amino acids were presumed to assume a secondary structure of $\alpha$-helix.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.52 no.3
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• pp.269-277
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• 2016

Erm proteins methylate the specific adenine residue ($A_{2058}$, E. coli numbering) on 23S rRNA to confer the $MLS_B$ (macrolidelincosamide-streptogramin B) antibiotic resistance on a variety of microorganisms ranging from antibiotic producers to pathogens. When phylogenetic tree is constructed, two main clusters come out forming each cluster of Actinobacteria and Firmicutes. Two representative Erm proteins from each cluster were selected and their in vitro methylation activities were compared. ErmS and ErmE from Actinobacteria cluster exhibited much higher activities than ErmB and ErmC' from Firmicutes: 9 fold difference when ErmC' and ErmE were compared and 13 fold between ErmS and ErmB. Most of the difference was observed and presumed to be caused by N-terminal and C-terminal extra region from ErmS and ErmE, respectively because NT59TE in which N-terminal end 59 amino acids was truncated from wild type ErmS exhibited only 22.5% of wild type ErmS activity. Meanwhile, even NT59TE showed three and 2.2 times more activity when it was compared to ErmB and C, respectively, suggesting core region from antibiotic producers contains extra structure enabling higher activity. This is suggested to be possible through the extra region of 197RWS199 (from both ErmS and ErmE), 261GVGGSLY267 (from ErmS), and 261GVGGNIQ267 (from ErmE) and 291SVV293 (from ErmS) and 291GAV293 (from ErmE) by multiple sequence alignment.

• Journal of Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.58 no.3
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• pp.241-246
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• 2015

This study was performed to investigate the antiinflammatory activities of taxifolin from Opuntia humifusa. A potent anti-oxidant activity was shown from the leaf extract at $IC_{50}$ value of $38.33{\pm}1.07{\mu}g/mL$ and fruit extract at $IC_{50}$ value of $40.23{\pm}2.21{\mu}g/mL$ by 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl assay. Fraction of taxifolin from leaf extract identified using high performance liquid chromatography and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. The results of cell viability indicated that taxifolin did not show cytotoxicity on RAW 264.7 cells at $500{\mu}M$ of concentration. The result showed that taxifolin inhibited lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced production of Nitrite oxide. In addition, taxifolin inhibited LPS-induced tumor necrosis factor-${\alpha}$ and interleukin-6 production by cytokine assay and cyclooxygenase-2 expression by western blot analysis, meaning taxifolin has a significant anti-inflammatory effect. Our results suggested that taxifolin from Opuntia humifusa showed anti-inflammatory activities.

• Journal of Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.60 no.4
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• pp.339-342
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• 2017

Residual endosulfan in an agricultural environment has been reported, although endosulfan was listed to persistent organic pollutants and banned. To produce the safe crop from endosulfan residue risk, the plant uptake potential of endosulfan from soil to crop should be studied. In here, the plant uptake potentials of endosulfan in various crops were surveyed and ranged from 0.002-4.460. And the bioconcentration factors (BCF) of total endosulfan in carrot and spinach were calculated from the pot experiment. The BCFs in carrot and spinach were 0.285 and 0.040-0.047 respectively. Endosulfan sulfate was contributed to over 42.8% of the crop residue as a major contributor among the three endosulfan congeners in both of carrot and spinach.