• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.27 no.9
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• pp.1692-1700
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• 2017

Ralstonia solanacearum causes bacterial wilt in a wide variety of host plant species and produces a melanin-like blackish-brown pigment in stationary phase when grown in minimal medium supplemented with tyrosine. To study melanin production regulation in R. solanacearum, five mutants exhibiting overproduction of melanin-like pigments were selected from a transposon (Tn) insertion mutant library of R. solanacearum SL341. Most of the mutants, except one (SL341T), were not complemented by the original gene or overproduced melanins. SL341T showed Tn insertion in a gene containing a conserved domain of eukaryotic transcription factor. The gene was annotated as a hypothetical protein, given its weak similarity to any known proteins. Upon complementation with its original gene, the mutant strains reverted to their wild-type phenotype. SL341T produced 3-folds more melanin at 72 h post-incubation compared with wild-type SL341 when grown in minimal medium supplemented with tyrosine. The chemical analysis of SL341T cultural filtrate revealed the accumulation of a higher amount of homogentisate, a major precursor of pyomelanin, and a lower amount of dihydroxyphenylalanine, an intermediate of eumelanin, compared with SL341. The expression study showed a relatively higher expression of hppD (encoding hydroxyphenylpyruvate dioxygenase) and lower expression of hmgA (encoding homogentisate dioxygenase) and nagL (encoding maleylacetoacetate isomerase) in SL341T than in SL341. SL341 showed a significantly higher expression of tyrosinase gene compared with SL341T at 48 h post-incubation. These results indicated that R. solanacearum produced both pyomelanin and eumelanin, and the novel hypothetical protein is involved in the negative regulation of melanin production.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.348-357
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• 1999

Seventy-two strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolated from the patients were tested for pigment production, exoenzyme production and antimicrobial susceptibility. In the pigment production test, 23.6% of total 72 strains produced both pyocyanine and pyoverdin. Pyoverdin and pyomelanin producing strains were in 9.7%, and 5.5% produced pyoverdin and pyorubin. Strains producing of all of exoenzyme, protease, elastase and lecithinase were in 5.6%. The most common type of exoenzyme production was both protease and elastase producing. Protease producing strain were 23.6%, Among the 72 strains, 50% produced protease. As the result of antimicrobial susceptibility in the isolated 20 strain, most strain were resistant to sulfamethoxazole(90%), but sensitive to other tested antibiotics more than 60%. The MIC50 and MIC90 level of tested antibiotics to 70 strains were 128 $\mu\textrm{g}$/$m\ell$, 512 $\mu\textrm{g}$/$m\ell$ for KM, 8,256 $\mu\textrm{g}$/$m\ell$ for GM, 8, 128 $\mu\textrm{g}$/$m\ell$ for CPZ, and 8, 64 $\mu\textrm{g}$/$m\ell$ for PIPC respectively.