• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.24 no.8
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• pp.1088-1095
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• 2014

A systematic investigation was performed on the bacterial, Bacillus, fungal, and yeast communities of the three types of Daqu (mechanically prepared, manually prepared, and mixed prepared) used in Baiyunbian Company by reconditioning PCR-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (PCR-DGGE). The DGGE results showed that the microbes in the three types of Daqu were mainly thermotolerant and thermophilic microbes, and the most dominant bacterial species were Bacillus and Virgibacillus, followed by Lactobacillus and Trichococcus. Furthermore, the dominant fungi were found to be molds, such as Rasamsonia, Penicillium, Aspergillus, and Monascus, and the dominant yeasts were Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Saccharomycopsis fibuligera, Pichia anomala, and Debaryomyces hansenii. In general, the three types of Daqu showed slight differences in microbial communities, and the Shannon indexes (H') of the manually prepared and mechanically prepared Daqu were similar. The results suggest that mechanically prepared Daqu can replace manually prepared Daqu in liquor production, and this research provides useful information for liquor production and process improvement.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.23 no.11
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• pp.1577-1585
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• 2013

Bioethanol production from lignocellulose is considered as a sustainable biofuel supply. However, the low cellulose hydrolysis efficiency limits the cellulosic ethanol production. The cellulase is strongly inhibited by the major end product cellobiose, which can be relieved by the addition of ${\beta}$-glucosidase. In this study, three ${\beta}$-glucosidases from different organisms were respectively expressed in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and the ${\beta}$-glucosidase from Saccharomycopsis fibuligera showed the best activity (5.2 U/ml). The recombinant strain with S. fibuligera ${\beta}$-glucosidase could metabolize cellobiose with a specific growth rate similar to the control strain in glucose. This recombinant strain showed higher hydrolysis efficiency in the cellulose simultaneous saccharification and fermentation, when using the Trichoderma reesei cellulase, which is short of the ${\beta}$-glucosidase activity. The final ethanol concentration was 110% (using Avicel) and 89% (using acid-pretreated corncob) higher than the control strain. These results demonstrated the effect of ${\beta}$-glucosidase secretion in the recombinant S. cerevisiae for enhancing cellulosic ethanol conversion.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.27 no.8
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• pp.1409-1418
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• 2017

Two typical microbial communities from Chinese rice wine fermentation collected in Yichang city and Suzhou city in China were investigated. Both communities could ferment glutinous rice to rice wine in 2 days. The sugar and ethanol contents were 198.67 and 14.47 mg/g, respectively, for rice wine from Yichang city, and 292.50 and 12.31 mg/g, respectively, for rice wine from Suzhou city. Acetic acid and lactic acid were the most abundant organic acids. Abundant fungi and bacteria were detected in both communities by high-throughput sequencing. Saccharomycopsis fibuligera and Rhizopus oryzae were the dominant fungi in rice wine from Suzhou city, compared with R. oryzae, Wickerhamomyces anomalus, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Mucor indicus, and Rhizopus microsporus in rice wine from Yichang city. Bacterial diversity was greater than fungal diversity in both communities. Citrobacter was the most abundant genus. Furthermore, Exiguobacterium, Aeromonas, Acinetobacter, Pseudomonas, Enterobacter, Bacillus, and Lactococcus were highly abundant in both communities.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.20 no.11
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• pp.1539-1545
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• 2010

In beer, glutathione works as the main antioxidant compound, which also correlates with the stability of the beer flavor. In addition, high residual sugars in beer contribute to major nonvolatile components, which are reflected in a high caloric content. Therefore, in this study, the Saccharomyces cerevisiae GSH1 gene encoding glutamylcysteine synthetase and the Saccharomycopsis fibuligera ALP1 gene encoding ${\alpha}$-amylase were coexpressed in industrial brewing yeast strain Y31 targeting the ${\alpha}$-acetolactate synthase (AHAS) gene (ILV2) and alcohol dehydrogenase gene (ADH2), resulting in the new recombinant strain TY3. The glutathione content in the fermentation broth of TY3 increased to 43.83 mg/l as compared with 33.34 mg/l in the fermentation broth of Y31. The recombinant strain showed a high ${\alpha}$-amylase activity and utilized more than 46% of the starch as the sole carbon source after 5 days. European Brewery Convention tube fermentation tests comparing the fermentation broths of TY3 and Y31 showed that the flavor stability index for TY3 was 1.3-fold higher, whereas its residual sugar concentration was 76.8% lower. Owing to the interruption of the ILV2 gene and ADH2 gene, the contents of diacetyl and acetaldehyde as off-flavor compounds were reduced by 56.93% and 31.25%, respectively, when compared with the contents in the Y31 fermentation broth. In addition, since no drug-resistant genes were introduced to the new recombinant strain, it should be more suitable for use in the beer industry, owing to its better flavor stability and other beneficial characteristics.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.50 no.1
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• pp.55-60
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• 2018

Microbial communities of four commercial Korean nuruks were analyzed by the 454 pyrosequencing method to correlate different characteristics of rice wine fermentation. The total and average sequencing reads of fungi in the four nuruks were 14,800 and 3,494, respectively. At the phylum level, Ascomycota was dominant in three nuruks, namely, SH, SS, and JJ, while Zygomycota was dominant in SJ. Saccharomycopsis was dominant in nuruks subjected to longer fermentation periods, such as SH and SS. The total and average sequence reads for bacteria were 31,485 and 7,871, respectively. Bacteria belonging to the phylum Firmicutes were dominant in all samples. SH showed several genera of lactic acid bacteria, such as Lactobacillus, Leuconostoc, Pediococcus, and other minor bacteria. Staphylococcus and Bacillus were the dominant bacteria in JJ and SJ, respectively.

• The Korean Journal of Mycology
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.191-200
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• 2014

Nuruk samples collected from various regions in Korea were investigated in terms of fungal contents and diversity. In measurement of colony forming unit (CFU) in Nuruk suspensions on DRBC agar, Nuruk samples MS4, MS8, and MS10 were among the highest fungal density, with $1,278.9{\pm}21.6$ (${\times}10^4$), $1,868.0{\pm}27.7$ (${\times}10^4$), and $775.1{\pm}19.2$ (${\times}10^4$) were among the samples showing the highest fungal density. CFU per 20 mg Nuruk, respectively. The majority of fungal components were yeasts, including Pichia anomala, P. kudriavzevii, Kluyveromyces marxianus, and Saccharomycopsis fibuligera, whereas Aspergillus oryzae and Rhizopus oryzae, the representative Nuruk fungi, were predominant only in the low fungal density Nuruks (MS2, MS5, and MS11). Saccharification capability of the fungal isolates was assessed by measurement of amylase activity in the culture broth. The highest amylase activity was found in A. niger and A. luchuensis, followed by S. fibuligera. A. oryzae and R. oryzae showed fair amylase activity but significantly lower than those of the three fungal species. R. oryzae was suggested to play an additional role in degradation of ${\beta}$-glucan in crop component of Nuruk since R. oryzae was the only fungus that showed ${\beta}$-glucanase activity among the fungal isolates. To confirm the safety of Nuruk, aflatoxigenicity of the isolated Aspergillus was estimated using the DNA markers norB-cypA, aflR, and omtA. All of the isolates turned out to be non-aflatoxigenic as evidenced by the deletion of gene markers, norB-cypA and aflR, and the absence of aflatoxin in the culture supernatants shown by TLC analysis.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.52 no.5
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• pp.529-537
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• 2020

This study was carried out to confirm changes in the microbial community and physicochemical characteristics of Korean traditional Makgeolli during fermentation by yeast as a fermentation starter. We demonstrate that the microbial community during fermentation affects the quality of Makgeolli. At the species level, Pediococcus pentosaceus, Weissella confusa, Pantoea vagans, and Lactobacillus graminis were dominant on fermentation mix, after 1-2 days, in the control group without yeast treatment. Acid production in the control group was higher than that in the yeast-treated group. P. pentosaceus was dominant throughout the fermentation process, and the proportion of P. vagans remarkably decreased following yeast addition. Considering quality characteristics, the alcohol content rapidly increased after yeast addition, and the lactic acid content was lower in the yeast-treated group than in the control. These results suggest that the rapid increase in alcohol at the start of fermentation inhibits the growth of lactic acid-producing bacteria. The addition of yeast may contribute to the reduction in the high amount of lactic acid, which can be one of the causes of changes in Makgeolli quality.

• 한국균학회소식:학술대회논문집
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• 2015.11a
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• pp.11-11
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• 2015

A total of sixty-six samples of Nuruk, a fermention starter used to make the Korean traditional rice wine, Makgeolli, were collected from central and southern regions of Korea in 2013 and 2014. We classified two groups of the Nuruk samples, "commercial" and "home-made", according to the manufacturing procedure and purpose of use. Commercial Nuruks were made in a controlled environment where the temperature and humidity are fixed and the final product is supplied to Makgeolli manufacturers. Home-made Nuruks were made under uncontrolled conditions in the naturally opened environment and were intended for use in the production of small amounts of home-brewed Makgeolli. We obtained more than five hundred isolates including filamentous fungi and yeasts from the Nuruk samples followed by identification of fungal species. Also we stored glycerol stocks of each single isolate at $-70^{\circ}C$. We identified the species of each isolate based on the sequences of ITS regions amplified with two different universal primer pairs. We also performed morphological characterization of the filamentous fungi and yeast species through observations under the microscope. We investigated the major fungal species of commercial and home-made Nuruks by counting the colony forming units (CFU) and analyzing the occurrence tendency of fungal species. While commercial Nuruks contained mostly high CFU of yeasts, home-made Nuruks showed relatively high occurrence of filamentous fungi. One of the representative Nuruk manufacturers used both domestic wheat bran and imported ones, mainly from US, as raw material. Depending on the source of ingredient, the fungal diversity was somewhat different. Another commercial Nuruk sample was collected twice, once in 2013 and again in 2014, and showed different diversity of fungal species in each year. Nuruks obtained from the southern regions of Korea and Jeju island showed high frequency of yeast such as Saccharomycopsis fibuligera and Pichia species as well as unique filamentous fungus, Monascus species. S. fibuligera was easily found in many Nuruk samples with high CFU. The major filamentous fungi were Aspergillus, Lichtheimia, Mucor and Penicillium species. In order to further our understanding of the isolates and their potential industrial applications, we assayed three enzymes, alpha amylase, glucoamylase and acid protease from 140 isolates out of about five hundred isolates and selected about 10 excellent strains with high enzyme activities. With these fungal isolates, we will perform omics analyses including genomics, transcriptomics, metabolic pathway analyses, and metabolomics followed by whole genome sequencing of unique isolates associated with the basic research of Nuruk and that also has applications in the Makgeolli making process.