• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• 제25권1호
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• pp.98-108
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• 2015

Staphylococcus aureus is an important foodborne pathogen that causes diverse diseases ranging from minor infections to life-threatening conditions in humans and animals. To further understand its pathogenesis, the genome of the strain S. aureus FORC_001 was isolated from a contaminated food. Its genome consists of 2,886,017 bp double-stranded DNA with a GC content of 32.8%. It is predicted to contain 2,728 open reading frames, 57 tRNAs, and 6 rRNA operons, including 1 additional 5S rRNA gene. Comparative phylogenetic tree analysis of 40 complete S. aureus genome sequences using average nucleotide identity (ANI) revealed that strain FORC_001 belonged to Group I. The closest phylogenetic match was S. aureus MRSA252, according to a whole-genome ANI (99.87%), suggesting that they might share a common ancestor. Comparative genome analysis of FORC_001 and MRSA252 revealed two non-homologous regions: Regions I and II. The presence of various antibiotic resistance genes, including the SCCmec cluster in Region I of MRSA252, suggests that this strain might have acquired the SCCmec cluster to adapt to specific environments containing methicillin. Region II of both genomes contains prophage regions but their DNA sequence identity is very low, suggesting that the prophages might differ. This is the first report of the complete genome sequence of S. aureus isolated from a real foodborne outbreak in South Korea. This report would be helpful to extend our understanding about the genome, general characteristics, and virulence factors of S. aureus for further studies of pathogenesis, rapid detection, and epidemiological investigation in foodborne outbreak.

• Molecules and Cells
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• 제27권2호
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• pp.175-181
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• 2009

The myosin light chain kinase (MYLK) gene encodes both smooth muscle and nonmuscle cell isoforms. Recently, polymorphisms in MYLK have been reported to be associated with several diseases. To examine the genetic effects of polymorphisms on the risk of asthma and related phenotypes, we scrutinized MYLK by re-sequencing/genotyping and statistical analysis in Korean population (n = 1,015). Seventeen common polymorphisms located in or near exons, having pairwise $r^2$ values less than 0.25, were genotyped. Our statistical analysis did not replicate the associations with the risk of asthma and log-transformed total IgE levels observed among African descendant populations. However, two SNPs in intron 16 (+89872C> G and +92263T> C), which were in tight LD (|D'| = 0.99), revealed significant association with log-transformed blood eosinophil level even after correction multiple testing ($P=0.002/P^{corr}=0.01$ and $P=0.002/P^{corr}=0.01$, respectively). The log-transformed blood eosinophil levels were higher in individuals bearing the minor alleles for +89872C> G and +92263T> C than in those bearing other allele. In additional subgroup analysis, the genetic effects of both SNPs were much more apparent among asthmatic patients and atopic asthma patients. Among atopic asthma patients, the log-transformed blood eosinophil levels were proportionally increased by gene-dose dependent manner of in both +89872C> G and +92263T> C(P = 0.0002 and P = 0.00007, respectively). These findings suggest that MYLK polymorphisms might be among the genetic factors underlying differential increases of blood eosinophil levels among asthmatic patients. Further biological and/or functional studies are needed to confirm our results.

• Mycobiology
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• 제51권1호
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• pp.36-48
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• 2023

Xanthoria elegans is a lichen symbiosis, that inhabits extreme environments and can absorb UV-B. We reported the de novo sequencing and assembly of X. elegans genome. The whole genome was approximately 44.63 Mb, with a GC content of 40.69%. Genome assembly generated 207 scaffolds with an N50 length of 563,100 bp, N90 length of 122,672 bp. The genome comprised 9,581 genes, some encoded enzymes involved in the secondary metabolism such as terpene, polyketides. To further understand the UV-B absorbing and adaptability to extreme environments mechanisms of X. elegans, we searched the secondary metabolites genes and gene-cluster from the genome using genome-mining and bioinformatics analysis. The results revealed that 7 NR-PKSs, 12 HR-PKSs and 2 hybrid PKS-PKSs from X. elegans were isolated, they belong to Type I PKS (T1PKS) according to the domain architecture; phylogenetic analysis and BGCs comparison linked the putative products to two NR-PKSs and three HR-PKSs, the putative products of two NR-PKSs were emodin xanthrone (most likely parietin) and mycophelonic acid, the putative products of three HR-PKSs were soppilines, (+)-asperlin and macrolactone brefeldin A, respectively. 5 PKSs from X. elegans build a correlation between the SMs carbon skeleton and PKS genes based on the domain architecture, phylogenetic and BGC comparison. Although the function of 16 PKSs remains unclear, the findings emphasize that the genes from X. elegans represent an unexploited source of novel polyketide and utilization of lichen gene resources.

• Plant Biotechnology Reports
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• 제3권1호
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• pp.87-93
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• 2009

To determine whether pattern recognition based on metabolite fingerprinting for whole cell extracts can be used to discriminate cultivars metabolically, leaves and fruits of five commercial strawberry cultivars were subjected to Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy. FT-IR spectral data from leaves were analyzed by principal component analysis (PCA) and Fisher's linear discriminant function analysis. The dendrogram based on hierarchical clustering analysis of these spectral data separated the five commercial cultivars into two major groups with originality. The first group consisted of Korean cultivars including 'Maehyang', 'Seolhyang', and 'Gumhyang', whereas in the second group, 'Ryukbo' clustered with 'Janghee', both Japanese cultivars. The results from analysis of fruits were the same as of leaves. We therefore conclude that the hierarchical dendrogram based on PCA of FT-IR data from leaves represents the most probable chemotaxonomical relationship between cultivars, enabling discrimination of cultivars in a rapid and simple manner.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• 제12권4호
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• pp.195-202
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• 2014

Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a complex disorder related to insulin resistance, obesity, and inflammation. Genetic and environmental factors also contribute to the development of MetS, and through genome-wide association studies (GWASs), important susceptibility loci have been identified. However, GWASs focus more on individual single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), explaining only a small portion of genetic heritability. To overcome this limitation, pathway analyses are being applied to GWAS datasets. The aim of this study is to elucidate the biological pathways involved in the pathogenesis of MetS through pathway analysis. Cohort data from the Korea Associated Resource (KARE) was used for analysis, which include 8,842 individuals (age, $52.2{\pm}8.9years$ ; body mass index, $24.6{\pm}3.2kg/m^2$). A total of 312,121 autosomal SNPs were obtained after quality control. Pathway analysis was conducted using Meta-analysis Gene-Set Enrichment of Variant Associations (MAGENTA) to discover the biological pathways associated with MetS. In the discovery phase, SNPs from chromosome 12, including rs11066280, rs2074356, and rs12229654, were associated with MetS (p < $5{\times}10^{-6}$), and rs11066280 satisfied the Bonferroni-corrected cutoff (unadjusted p < $1.38{\times}10^{-7}$, Bonferroni-adjusted p < 0.05). Through pathway analysis, biological pathways, including electron carrier activity, signaling by platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF), the mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase kinase cascade, PDGF binding, peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) signaling, and DNA repair, were associated with MetS. Through pathway analysis of MetS, pathways related with PDGF, mitogen-activated protein kinase, and PPAR signaling, as well as nucleic acid binding, protein secretion, and DNA repair, were identified. Further studies will be needed to clarify the genetic pathogenesis leading to MetS.

• 한국콘텐츠학회논문지
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• 제10권4호
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• pp.19-27
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• 2010

최근에 고속 genome-wide RNA 간섭 스크리닝 기술은 복잡한 세포 기능을 이해하는 생명공학 연구의 핵심적인 도구로 자리 잡고 있다. 그러나 관련 연구에서 발생되는 수많은 영상을 수작업을 통해 분석하는 것은 많은 시간과 노력이 요구된다. 따라서 세포영상의 자동분석 기술은 매우 시급히 확보되어야 하는 기술이며, 그 중 영상 분할은 자동분석을 위한 첫 단계로서 가장 중요한 과정이라 할 수 있다. 세포영상의 자동분할에서는 영역의 겹침 현상과 영역별 모양의 다양성 및 영상 특성의 불균일성 등이 정확한 세포 분할을 어렵게 만드는 주원인으로 작용한다. 본 논문에서는 이러한 문제점을 극복하기 위해 영상 특징들의 국부적인 연속성과 특징 벡터 기반의 워터쉐드 알고리즘을 적용한 새로운 자동 세포 분할 알고리즘을 제안한다. 영상 특징들의 연속성을 국부적인 영역으로 제한함으로써 영역별 모양의 다양성 및 영상 특성의 불균일성에 따른 문제점을 극복할 수 있으며, 특징벡터의 사용을 통해 하나의 영상특징만을 고려한 경우 발생되는 겹침 영역에서의 분할 성능 저하를 개선할 수 있다. 세포영상 분석을 위한 소프트웨어 패키지인 Cellprofiler와의 비교/분석 실험을 통해 제안 알고리즘의 효율성을 입증하였다.

• 한국수산과학회지
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• 제49권6호
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• pp.867-874
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• 2016

Although shrimps belonging to family Crangonidae are known to be genetically divergent and ecologically important among the various benthos, any of their mitochondrial genome has not been reported yet. We here determined the complete mitochondrial genome sequence of Crangon hakodatei (Rathbun, 1902), which was collected from East China Sea ($124^{\circ}E$ and $34.5^{\circ}N$). Total mitochondrial genome length of C. hakodatei was 16,060 bp, in which 13 proteins, 2 ribosomal RNAs, 22 transfer RNAs and a putative control region were encoded. Secondary structure prediction analysis showed that twenty tRNA genes exhibit the conserved structure but two genes, $tRNA^{Cys}$ and $tRNA^{Ser}$ (AGN), lack T and D arm, respectively. Based on the sequence similarity of the COI region from the currently reported five species belonging to genus Crangonidae, C. hakodatei was most closely related to Crangon crangon. Phylogenetic analysis of full COXI genes belonging to infraorder Caridea showed that only crangonid shrimps were clustered together with those of Dendrobranchiata. Gene order were well conserved from Penaeoidea to Caridea but $tRNA^{Pro}$ and $tRNA^{Thr}$ in Palaemonid shrimp were flipped each other by the recombination. Further study about mitochondrial genome sequences of shrimps belonging to Crangonidae should be made to know better about their evolutional relationships with other those in infraorder Caridea.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• 제5권4호
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• pp.143-151
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• 2007

To understand the mechanism of transcriptional regulation, it is essential to detect promoters and regulatory elements. Various kinds of methods have been introduced to improve the prediction accuracy of regulatory elements. Since there are few experimentally validated regulatory elements, previous studies have used criteria based solely on the level of scores over background sequences. However, selecting the detection criteria for different prediction methods is not feasible. Here, we studied the calibration of thresholds to improve regulatory element prediction. We predicted a regulatory element using MATCH, which is a powerful tool for transcription factor binding site (TFBS) detection. To increase the prediction accuracy, we used a regulatory potential (RP) score measuring the similarity of patterns in alignments to those in known regulatory regions. Next, we calibrated the thresholds to find relevant scores, increasing the true positives while decreasing possible false positives. By applying various thresholds, we compared predicted regulatory elements with validated regulatory elements from the Open Regulatory Annotation (ORegAnno) database. The predicted regulators by the selected threshold were validated through enrichment analysis of muscle-specific gene sets from the Tissue-Specific Transcripts and Genes (T-STAG) database. We found 14 known muscle-specific regulators with a less than a 5% false discovery rate (FDR) in a single TFBS analysis, as well as known transcription factor combinations in our combinatorial TFBS analysis.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• 제7권2호
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• pp.57-64
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• 2009

Fibrinogen alpha chain (FGA), a subunit of fibrinogen, might be a potential player for type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), since the plasma levels of fibrinogen is known to be related to the incidence of T2DM. To elucidate the potential role of FGA in T2DM, we investigated whether FGA genetic variations are relevant in T2DM in the Korean population. Seven FGA single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were genotyped in Ansung and Ansan cohorts (474 T2DM subjects and 470 normal controls) in Korea. The association between SNPs and T2DM was determined by logistic regression analysis. Genetic relevance of SNPs to T2DM-related phenotypes was investigated by multiple linear regression analysis. Statistical analysis revealed that among seven FGA SNPs, significant associations with T2DM were observed in FGA rs2070011 (p=0.013-0.034, OR=0.72${\sim}$0.79), rs6050 (p=0.026${\sim}$0.048, OR=1.24${\sim}$1.37), and rs2070022 (p=0.016${\sim}$0.039, OR=0.70${\sim}$0.72). Two SNPs, rs2070011 and rs6050, also showed significant association with T2DM-related phenotypes such as triglyceride (p=0.005${\sim}$0.011 for rs2070011 and p=0.003${\sim}$0.008 for rs6050), total cholesterol (p=0.01 for rs2070011 and p=0.024 for rs6050) and fasting glucose (p=0.035${\sim}$0.036 for rs2070011 and p=0.048 for rs6050) in 470 normal controls. Our association study implies that FGA might be an important genetic factor in T2DM pathogenesis in the Korean population by affecting plasma lipid and glucose levels.

• Animal Bioscience
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• 제36권1호
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• pp.19-28
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• 2023

Objective: The objective of this study was to perform genome (genome wide association studies [GWAS]) and chromosome (CWAS) wide association analyses to identify single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with growth traits in registered Simmental and Simbrah cattle. Methods: The phenotypes were deregressed BLUP EBVs for birth weight, weaning weight direct, weaning weight maternal, and yearling weight. The genotyping was performed with the GGP Bovine 150k chip. After the quality control analysis, 105,129 autosomal SNP from 967 animals (473 Simmental and 494 Simbrah) were used to carry out genotype association tests. The two association analyses were performed per breed and using combined information of the two breeds. The SNP associated with growth traits were mapped to their corresponding genes at 100 kb on either side. Results: A difference in magnitude of posterior probabilities was found across breeds between genome and chromosome wide association analyses. A total of 110, 143, and 302 SNP were associated with GWAS and CWAS for growth traits in the Simmental-, Simbrah- and joint -data analyses, respectively. It stands out from the enrichment analysis of the pathways for RNA polymerase (POLR2G, POLR3E) and GABAergic synapse (GABRR1, GABRR3) for Simmental cattle and p53 signaling pathway (BID, SERPINB5) for Simbrah cattle. Conclusion: Only 6,265% of the markers associated with growth traits were found using CWAS and GWAS. The associated markers using the CWAS analysis, which were not associated using the GWAS, represents information that due to the model and priors was not associated with the traits.