• 한국약용작물학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.127-130
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• 2006

Coenzyme Q10(CoQ10) is a biological quinine compound that is widely found in living organisms including yeast, plants, and animals. CoQ10 has two major physiological activities:(a)mitochondrial electron-transport activity and (b)antioxidant activity. Various clinical applications are also available : Parkinson's disease, Heart disease, diabetes. Because of its various application filed, the market size of CoQ 10 is continuously expanding all over the world. A Japanese company, Nisshin Pharma Inc. is the first industrial producer of CoQ10(1974). CoQ10 can be produced by fermentation and chemical synthesis. In several companies, these two methods are used for the production of CoQ10:chemical synthesis - Yungjin, Daewoong, Nishin Parma; fermentation - Kaneka, Kyowa, Yungjin, etc. Researchs in microbial production of CoQ10 have several steps: screening of producing microorganisms, strain development, fermentation process, purification process, scale-up process, plant production. Several strategies are available for the strain development : Random mutation and screening, directed metabolic engineering. For the optimization of fermentation process, various conditions (nutrient, aeration, temperature, culture type, etc.) are considered. Purification is one of the most important step because the quality of final products entirely depends on its purity. The production cost will be reduced and the quality of the CoQ10 will be impoved by continuous researches in strain development, fermentation process, purification process.

• BMB Reports
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• v.47 no.5
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• pp.256-261
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• 2014

To investigate the function of N-glycosylation of Cel5A (endoglucanase II) from Hypocrea jecorina, two N-glycosylation site deletion Cel5A mutants (rN124D and rN124H) were expressed in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The weights of these recombinant mutants were 54 kDa, which were lower than that of rCel5A. This result was expected to be attributed to deglycosylation. The enzyme activity of rN124H was greatly reduced to 60.6% compared with rCel5A, whereas rN124D showed slightly lower activity (10%) than that of rCel5A. rN124D and rN124H showed different thermal stabilities compared with the glycosylated rCel5A, especially at lower pH value. Thermal stabilities were reduced and improved for rN124D and rN124H, respectively. Circular dichroism spectroscopy showed that the modification of secondary structure by mutation may be the reason for the change in enzymatic activity and thermal stability.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.1163-1169
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• 2004

An unstructured mathematical model is presented for lactic acid fermentation based on the energy balance. The proposed model reflects the energy metabolic state and then predicts the cell growth, lactic acid production, and glucose consumption rates by relating the above rates with the energy metabolic rate. Fermentation experiments were conducted under various initial lactic acid concentrations of 0, 30, 50, 70, and 90 g/l. Also, a genetic algorithm was used for further optimization of the model parameters and included the operations of coding, initialization, hybridization, mutation, decoding, fitness calculation, selection, and reproduction exerted on individuals (or chromosomes) in a population. The simulation results showed a good fit between the model prediction and the experimental data. The genetic algorithm proved to be useful for model parameter optimization, suggesting wider applications in the field of biological engineering.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.165-171
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• 2015

Microbial pathogens are responsible for most of the rapidly-spreading deadly infectious diseases against humans. Thus, there is an urgent need for efficient and rapid detection methods for infectious microorganisms. The detection methods should not only be targeted and specific, but they have to be encompassing of potential changes of the pathogen as it evolves and mutates quickly during an epidemic or pandemic. The existing diagnostics such as the antibody-based ELISA immunoassay and PCR methods are too selective and narrowly focused; they are insufficient to capture newly evolved mutant strains of the pathogen. Here, we introduce a fresh perspective on some new technologies, including aptamers and next generation sequencing for pathogen detection. These technologies are not in their infancy; they are reasonably mature and ready, and they hold great promise for unparalleled applications in pathogen detection.

• The Journal of the Korean Society for Microbiology
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.185-193
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• 1987

Ten species of herbae, which have been used to treat cancers in Chinese medicine, were tested to investigate their mutagenicity or antimutagenicity in S. typhimurium TA97, TA98, TA100, TA1535, and TA1538. Scolopendra centipede was weakly active in reversion of the frameshift mutation in S. typhimurium TA97 strain and the base-pair substitution in TA100 and TA1535 strains. Other herbae such as Coix lachryma, Dianthus superbus, Tricanthoshse kirilowii, Eupatorium formosanum, Lithospermum erythrorhizon, Ansaema japonicum, Curcuma zedoaria, Helicteres angustifolia, and Euonymus sieboldianus did not show any of the mutagenic potential, regardless of the metabolic activation with rat hepatic microsomal fraction. Dianthus superbus, Eupatorium formosanum, and Euonymus sieboldianus exhibited suppressive activities on microbial mutagenesis of N-methyl-N'-nitrosoguanidine, a base-pair substitution mutagen, in TA1535 and TA100 tester strains. The antimutagenic activities of Dianthus superbus and Euonymus sieboldianus appeared to be dose-dependant.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.24 no.7
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• pp.1019-1025
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• 2011

Toll-like receptors (TLRs) play an important role in the recognition of invading pathogens and the modulation of innate immune responses in mammals. The TLR4 and TLR7 are well known to recognize the bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and single stranded (ssRNA) ligands, respectively and play important role in host defense against Gram-negative bacteria and ssRNA viruses. In the present study, coding exon fragments of these two TLRs were identified, cloned, sequenced and analyzed in terms of insertion-deletion polymorphism, within bovine TLRs 4 and 7, thereby facilitating future TLR signaling and association studies relevant to bovine innate immunity. Comparative sequence analysis of TLR 4 exons revealed that this gene is more variable, particularly the coding frame (E3P1), while other parts showed percent identity of 95.7% to 100% at nucleotide and amino acid level, respectivley with other Bos indicus and Bos taurus breeds from different parts of the world. In comparison to TLR4, sequence analysis of TLR7 showed more conservation among different B. indicus and B. taurus breeds, except single point mutation at 324 nucleotide position (AAA to AAM) altering a single amino acid at 108 position (K to X). Percent identity of TLR7 sequences (all 3 exons) was between 99.2% to 100% at nucleotide and amino acid level, when compared with available sequence database of B. indicus and B. taurus. Simple Modular Architecture Research Tool (SMART) analysis showed variations in the exon fragments located in the Leucine Rich Repeat (LRR) region, which is responsible for binding with the microbial associated molecular patterns and further, downstream signaling to initiate anti-microbial response. Considering importance of TLR polymorphism in terms of innate immunity, further research is warranted.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Bioinformatics Conference
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• 2000.11a
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• pp.13-16
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• 2000

Microorganisms have been widely employed for the production of useful bioproducts including primary metabolites such as ethanol, succinic acid, acetone and butanol, secondary metabolites represented by antibiotics, proteins, polysaccharides, lipids and many others. Since these products can be obtained in small quantities under natural condition, mutation and selection processes have been employed for the improvement of strains. Recently, metabolic engineering strategies have been employed for more efficient production of these bioproducts. Metabolic engineering can be defined as purposeful modification of cellular metabolic pathways by introducing new pathways, deleting or modifying the existing pathways for the enhanced production of a desired product or modified/new product, degradation of xenobiotics, and utilization of inexpensive raw materials. Metabolic flux analysis and metabolic control analysis along with recombinant DNA techniques are three important components in designing optimized metabolic pathways, This powerful technology is being further improved by the genomics, proteomics, metabolomics and bioinformatics. Complete genome sequences are providing us with the possibility of addressing complex biological questions including metabolic control, regulation and flux. In silico analysis of microbial metabolic pathways is possible from the completed genome sequences. Transcriptome analysis by employing ONA chip allows us to examine the global pattern of gene expression at mRNA level. Two dimensional gel electrophoresis of cellular proteins can be used to examine the global proteome content, which provides us with the information on gene expression at protein level. Bioinformatics can help us to understand the results obtained with these new techniques, and further provides us with a wide range of information contained in the genome sequences. The strategies taken in our lab for the production of pharmaceutical proteins, polyhydroxyalkanoate (a family of completely biodegradable polymer), succinic acid and me chemicals by employing metabolic engineering powered by genomics, proteomics, metabolomics and bioinformatics will be presented.

• Mycobiology
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• v.50 no.6
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• pp.408-419
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• 2022

Filamentous fungi that could be classified into Aspergillus flavus/oryzae were isolated from traditionally fermented meju commercially available in Korea. The samples were analyzed for aflatoxin B1 and ochratoxin A contamination by HPLC; however, no toxin was detected. In addition, fungal and bacterial metagenomic sequencing were performed to analyze the microbial distribution in the samples. The results revealed that the distribution and abundance of fungi and bacteria differed considerably depending on the production regions and fermentation conditions of the meju samples. Through morphological analysis, ITS region sequencing, and assessment of the aflatoxin-producing ability, a total of 32 A. flavus/oryzae strains were identified. PCR analysis of six regions with a high mutation frequency in the aflatoxin gene cluster (AGC) revealed a total of six types of AGC breaking point patterns. The A. flavus/oryzae strains did not exhibit the high amylase activity detected in the commercial yellow koji strain (starter mold). However, their peptidase and lipase activities were generally higher than that of the koji isolates. We verified the safety of the traditionally fermented meju samples by analyzing the AGC breaking point pattern and the enzyme activities of A. flavus/oryzae strains isolated from the samples. The isolated strains could possibly be used as starter molds for soybean fermentation.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.343-352
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• 2006

Sialic acid is a sugar typically found at the N-glycan termini of glycoproteins in mammalian cells. Lec3 CHO cell mutants are deficient in epimerase activity, due to a defect in the gene that encodes a bifunctional UDP-GlcNAc 2-epimerase/ManNAc kinase (GNE). Sialic acid modification on the cell surface is partially affected in these cells. We have mutagenized Lec3 CHO cells and isolated six mutants (termed C2m) deficient in the cell surface expression of polysialic acid (PSA). Mutant C2m9 was partially defective in expression of cell-surface PSA and wheat germ agglutinin (WGA) binding, while in the other five mutants, both cell-surface PSA and WGA binding were undetectable. PSA expression was restored by complementation with the gene encoding the CMP-sialic acid transporter (CST), indicating that CST mutations were responsible for the phenotypes of the C2m cells. We characterized the CST mutations in these cells by Northern blotting and RT-PCR. C2m9 and C2m45 carried missense mutations resulting in glycine to glutamate substitutions at amino acids 217 (G217E) and 256 (G256E), respectively. C2m13, C2m39 and C2m31 had nonsense mutations that resulted in decreased CST mRNA stability, and C2m34 carried a putative splice site mutation. PSA and CD15s expression in CST-deficient Lec2 cells were partially rescued by G217E CST, but not by G256E CST, although both proteins were expressed at similar levels, and localized to the Golgi. These results indicate that the novel missense mutations isolated in this study affect CST activity.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.80 no.2
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• pp.159-168
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• 2017

Background: Streptomycin (SM) is recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a part of standard regimens for retreating multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) cases. The incidence of MDR-TB in retreatment cases was 19% in Thailand. To date, information on SM resistance (SMR) gene mutations correlated to the SMR of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Thai isolates is limited. In this study, the mutations in rpsL, rrs, gidB, and whiB7 were investigated and their association to SMR and the lineage of M. tuberculosis were explored. Methods: The lineages of 287 M. tuberculosis collected from 2007 to 2011 were identified by spoligotyping. Drug susceptibility profiles were evaluated by the absolute concentration method. Mutations in SMR genes of 46 SM-resistant and 55 SM-susceptible isolates were examined by DNA sequencing. Results: Three rpsL (Lys43Arg, Lys88Arg, and Lys88Thr) and two gidB (Trp45Ter and Gly69Asp) mutations were present exclusively in the SM resistant M. tuberculosis. Lys43Arg rpsL was the most predominant SMR mutations (69.6%) and prevailed among Beijing isolates (p<0.001). No SMR-related mutation in was found rrs. The combination of rpsL and gidB mutations provided 76.1% sensitivity for detecting SMR in M. tuberculosis Thai isolates. whiB7 was not responsible for SMR in SM resistant isolates lacking rpsL and rrs mutations. The significance of the three gidB mutations, 276A>C, 615A>G, and 330G>T, as lineage signatures for Beijing and EAI were underscored. This study identified 423G>A gidB as a novel sub-lineage marker for EAI6-BGD1. Conclusion: Our study suggested that the majority of SMR in M. tuberculosis Thai isolates were responsible by rpsL and gidB polymorphisms constantly providing the novel lineage specific makers.