• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.159-165
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• 1997

We collected 3,237 plant samples, mainly leaves of various trees, from many provinces in Korea and a total of 1,925 Bacillus thuringiensis isolates were obtained and characterized. The isolates were characterized in terms of crystal morphology, PAGE pattern of the toxin proteins, plasmids pattern, biochemical characteristics, and bioassay. The microscopic observation showed that 49.1% of the isolates have bipyramidal shape crystals, 7.1% of spherical shape crystals, 1.4% of rhomboidal shape crystals, and others have small or amorphous inclusions. The insecticidal activities of the spore-crystal mixtures of isolates were tested against Plutella xylostella, Bombyx mori, Culex pipiens, and Agelastica coerulea. Bioassay showed that 51.3% of the isolates were shown to be active; lepidopteran-specific (44.8%), dipteran-specific(4.9%) and coleopteran-specific (1.6%). The remainder(48.8%) did not show any activity against the insects we tested. Interestingly though, some of these non-active isolates were shown to have bipyramidal crystals. By serotyping 22 isolates of our collection, we found that there are various kind of subspecies such as aizawai, amagiens, canadensis, darmstadiensis, galleriae, finitimus, kurstaki, morrisoni and neoleonensis, and three isolates have been classified into a new serotype, H49, and one of them, the type strain, named subsp. muju. From this study it was found that phylloplane is a good source for the isolation of Bacillius thuringiensis, and Bacillus thuringiensis is distributed widely in Korea.

• Korean journal of applied entomology
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.300-306
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• 1993

The CryIIA gene encoding the insecticidal crystal protein of Bacillus thuringiens!s subsp. kurstalri HD-l has been cloned in Escherichia col!, and its nucleotide sequences were determined completely. 5kb Hindlli fragment harboring CryIIA gene was screened in the large ca. 225kb plasmid DNA by southern blot. HindlIT digested 5kb fragment was ligated into pUC19 and transformed in E. coli. The 4kb BamHI-HindlIT fragment containing the CryIIA gene was subcloned and named pSKIIA. DNA sequence analysis demonstrates that pSKIIA is the gene of an operon which is comprised of Lhree open reading frames (designated orn, orf2 and or£3). The CrylIA gene is composed of 3,952bp-long BamHI-Hindill DNA restriction fragment. The orf3 code for a polypeptide of 633 amino acid residues. The protoxin protein has a predicted molecular weight of 70,780. The E. coli derived protoxin gene product is biologICally active against three species of Lepidopteran (Plu.lelia maculipennis, He/iolhis assulta, Spodoptera litura) and a species of Dip Leran( Culex pipines) larvae in bioassay.