• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.282-285
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• 2004

The polyene antibiotics including nystatin, pimaricin, amphotericin and candicidin are a family of most promising antifungal polyketide compounds, typically produced by rare actinomycetes species. The biosynthetic gene clusters for these polyenes have been previously investigated, revealing the presence of highly homologous biosynthetic genes among polyene-producers such as polyketide synthase (PKS) and cytochrome P450 hydroxylase (CYP) genes. Based on amino acid sequence alignment among actinomycetes CYP genes, the highly-conserved regions specific for only polyene CYP genes were identified and chosen for degenerate PCR primers, followed by the PCR-screening with various actinomycetes genomic DNAs. Among tested several polyene non-producing actinomycetes strains, Pseudonorcardia autotrophica strain was selected based on the presence of PCR product with polyene-specific CYP gene primers, and then confirmed to contain a cryptic novel polyene hydroxylase gene in the chromosome. These results suggest that the polyene-specific hydroxylase gene PCR should be an efficient way of screening and isolating potentially-valuable cryptic polyene antibiotic biosynthetic genes from various microorganisms including rare actinomycetes.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.176-180
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• 2000

Three polyene macrolide antibiotics including two new compounds were isolated from the culture mycelia of a Streptomyces species. The structures of these metabollites were determined as elizabethin, a previously reported 28-membered macrolide and two analohs, using combined spectroscopic methods. These compounds exhibited antifungal activity and cytotoxicity against a juman leukemia cell.

• 한국생물공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.04a
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• pp.396-397
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• 2005

The polyene antibiotics are a family of most promising antifungal polyketide compounds, typically produced by actinomycetes species. Using the polyene CYP-specific PCR screening with served actinomycetes genomic DNAs, Pseudonocardia autotrophica strain was identified to contain a unique polyene-specific CYP gene. The genomic DNA library screening using the polyene-specific CYP gene probe revealed the positive cosmid clone containing an approximately 34.5 kb DNA fragment revealed a total of seven complete and two incomplete open reading frame (ORFs), which are highly homologous but unique to previously-known polyene biosynthetic genes. These results suggest that the polyene-specific screening approach should be an efficient way of isolating potectially-valuable cryptic polyene biosynthetic gene cluster from various rare actinomycetes.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.238-242
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• 2004

Antifungal agents, flavofungin and fungichromin were isolated from the fermentation culture broth of a Streptomyces sp. SKM338. Biological evaluation of these antibiotics indicated that the compounds possesses broad spectrum antifungal activity against various pathogens. Especially, these compounds inhibited throughly growth of Didymella bryoniae, caused Gummy stem blight of melons, occurs in the southeastern Korea. Inhibition of this pathogen may be prevented from directly reducing both pre- and post-harvest yields.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.204-208
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• 2002

A Streptomyces sp. isolated from a soil sample collected in Taejeon, Korea has previously been found to produce two new polyene antibiotics. The two new antibiotics were named "16-methyloxazolomycin (antibacterial)" and "tetrin C (antifungal)", and their chemical structures are presented elsewhere [10, 11]. In the current study, chemotaxonomy, numerical taxonomy, and ISP methods were all employed for the taxonomic study. The spore chains were spirales and the spore surface was smooth. The spore mass was a gray series and no melanin pigment was produced. On the basis of the morphological and physiological properties, the microorganism was identified to be Streptomyces erumpens, belonging to the gray series of category IV, as defined by Bergey′s Manual. Tetrin C at the concentration of 20 ${\mu}g$/ml demonstrated a potent in vivo (pot test) preventive effect against rice blast, rice sheath blight, cucumber gray mold, wheat powdery mildew, and barley leaf rust.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.212-215
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• 2004

In order to develop a biocontrol agent that can effectively control Fusarium wilt on Cymbidium genus, the effectiveness of antagonistic microbes against the cause pathogen was screened. The selected microbe showed a broad spectrum of antifungal activity, and the culture broth of this microbe had better preventive effect on Fusarium wilt than the commercial chemical agent in the pot assay. This isolated strain, GBA-12, was identified as Streptomyces kasugaensis, and the antifungal substance was purified from a broth culture of GBA-12. This purified substance was identified as a polyene macrolide (YS-822A) that was newly discovered from Streptomyces kasugaensis, and it exhibited antifungal activity against several phytopathogenic fungi.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.218-221
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• 2007

The polyene antifungal antibiotics, mostly produced by Gram-positive soil actinomycetes, are a family of type I polyketide macrolide ring compounds with 20$\sim$40 carbon backbone contain 3$\sim$8 conjugated double bonds. Using polyene-specific genomic screening strategy, we previously isolated three novel polyene-producing actinomycetes strains from soil, implying the potential application of these strains' spores as microbial pesticides. Here, we report that the sonication is a very efficient method for actinomycetes spore generation with a sonicator power-dependent manner. In addition, these sonication-driven actinomycetes spores retained significant portion of their cell viabilities as well as antifungal activities after freeze-drying procedure, implying the potential application of these strains' spores as microbial pesticides.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.32 no.7
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• pp.911-917
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• 2022

As valuable antibiotics, microbial natural products have been in use for decades in various fields. Among them are polyene compounds including nystatin, amphotericin, and nystatin-like Pseudonocardia polyenes (NPPs). Polyene macrolides are known to possess various biological effects, such as antifungal and antiviral activities. NPP A1, which is produced by Pseudonocardia autotrophica, contains a unique disaccharide moiety in the tetraene macrolide backbone. NPP B1, with a heptane structure and improved antifungal activity, was then developed via genetic manipulation of the NPP A1 biosynthetic gene cluster (BGC). Here, we generated a Streptomyces artificial chromosomal DNA library to isolate a large-sized NPP B1 BGC. The NPP B1 BGC was successfully isolated from P. autotrophica chromosome through the construction and screening of a bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) library, even though the isolated 140-kb BAC clone (named pNPPB1s) lacked approximately 8 kb of the right-end portion of the NPP B1 BGC. The additional introduction of the pNPPB1s as well as co-expression of the 32-kb portion including the missing 8 kb led to a 7.3-fold increase in the production level of NPP B1 in P. autotrophica. The qRT-PCR confirmed that the transcription level of NPP B1 BGC was significantly increased in the P. autotrophica strain containing two copies of the NPP B1 BGCs. Interestingly, the NPP B1 exhibited a previously unidentified SARS-CoV-2 RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) inhibition activity in vitro. These results suggest that the Streptomyces BAC cloning of a large-sized, natural product BGC is a valuable approach for titer improvement and biological activity screening of natural products in actinomycetes.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.329-336
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• 1995

For the development of new antitumor antibiotics produced by microorganisms, Streptomyces sp. YBE-316 was isolated from soil. The productivity of the antitumor antibiotic from Streptomyces sp. YBE-316 gradually increased after 60 hours, and was maximum after 100 hours after inoculation in growth medium (2.0% sucrose, 1.0% soybean meal, 0.1% K$_{2}$HPO$_{4}$, pH 7.0) at 30$\circ$C, 150 rpm, 5 NL/min by 30 l jar fermentor. This antitumor antibiotic was present only in mycelium, and stable in pH 5.0-10.0 for 20 minutes at 100$\circ$C. Antitumor and antibiotic activities were maintained at neutral pH, and heat stability was low. This antitumor antibiotic was soluble in methanol and ethanol, and insoluble in water, ethyl acetate, chloroform, and n-hexane. This antitumor antibiotic was sequentially purified by acetone extraction from mycelium, butanol extraction, and silica gel column chromatography. Antitumor activity was low against most tested cell lines, but antibiotic activity was high and low against yeasts and bacteria, respectivelv. The visualization test showed that this antitumor antibiotic had higher hydroxyl, ketone, amino, carboxyl groups, and sugar(s) in its structure. Instrumental analyses showed that this antitumor antibiotic was a pentaene in polyene class antibiotics. In pentaene class antibiotics, this was considered as an eurocidin or capacidin type antibiotics. The molecular weight of this antitumor antibiotic was higher than 683.0 daltons, and this antitumor antibiotic might be glycosylated by other sugar(s), instead of mycosamine or perosamine, an amino sugar.

• Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.114-118
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• 2002

Phenalamides $A_1{\sim}A_3$ were reisolated as cytotoxic substances from culture broth of Myxococcus stipitatus JW111. The producing strain was isolated from the marine sediment collected off the shore of Geomun Island, Korea. The active principles were extracted from cell mass with acetone and successively purified by silica gel column chromatography, Sephadex LH-20 column chromatography, and finally recycling prep. HPLC. These compounds demonstrated significant cytotoxicity against certain human cancer cells, having $IC_50$ values ranging from 0.23 to 0.50 ${\mu}g/ml$. Moreover, they also inhibited the growth of adriamycin-resistant HCT/ADM human cancer cell line as well as its parent sensitive cell line.