• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.108-114
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• 2015

Curvularia lunata is an important maize foliar fungal pathogen that distributes widely in maize growing area in China, and several key pathogenic factors have been isolated. An yeast two-hybrid (Y2H) library is a very useful platform to further unravel novel pathogenic factors in C. lunata. To construct a high-quality full length-expression cDNA library from the C. lunata for application to pathogenesis-related protein-protein interaction screening, total RNA was extracted. The SMART (Switching Mechanism At 5' end of the RNA Transcript) technique was used for cDNA synthesis. Double-stranded cDNA was ligated into the pGADT7-Rec vector with Herring Testes Carrier DNA using homologous recombination method. The ligation mixture was transformed into competent yeast AH109 cells to construct the primary cDNA library. Eventually, a high qualitative library was successfully established according to an evaluation on quality. The transformation efficiency was about $6.39{\times}10^5$ transformants/$3{\mu}g$ pGADT7-Rec. The titer of the primary cDNA library was $2.5{\times}10^8cfu/mL$. The numbers for the cDNA library was $2.46{\times}10^5$. Randomly picked clones show that the recombination rate was 88.24%. Gel electrophoresis results indicated that the fragments ranged from 0.4 kb to 3.0 kb. Melanin synthesis protein Brn1 (1,3,8-hydroxynaphthalene reductase) was used as a "bait" to test the sufficiency of the Y2H library. As a result, a cDNA clone encoding VelB protein that was known to be involved in the regulation of diverse cellular processes, including control of secondary metabolism containing melanin and toxin production in many filamentous fungi was identified. Further study on the exact role of the VelB gene is underway.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.488-500
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• 2022

Most fungal infections by opportunistic yeast pathogens such as Candida spp. are the major causes of morbidity and mortality in patients with lowered immune. Previous studies have reported that some strains of Candida secret secondary metabolites play an important role in the decreasing of immunity in the infected patient. In this study, 110 Candida spp. were isolated from different clinical specimens from Baghdad hospitals. Candida isolates were identified by conventional methods, they were processed for Candida speciation on CHROMagar. The results of identification were confirmed by internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequencing. Phylogenetic trees were analyzed with reference strains deposited in GenBank. Antifungal susceptibility testing was evaluated by the disc diffusion method and performed as recommended by the Clinical and Laboratory Standard Institute (CLSI) M44-A document. Candida isolates investigated produce secondary metabolites gliotoxin with HPLC technique and quantification. Out of 110 Candida isolates, C. albicans (66.36%) was the most frequent isolate, followed by the isolates of C. tropicalis (10.9%) and C. glabrata (6.36%) respectively. Concerning the antifungal susceptibility test, Candida isolates showed a high level of susceptibility to Miconazole (70.9%), Itraconazole (68.2%), and Nystatine (64.5%). The ability of obtained isolates of Candida spp. to produce gliotoxin on RPMI medium was investigated, only 28 isolates had the ability to secret this toxin in culture filtrates. The highest concentrations were detected in C. albicans (1.048 ㎍/ml). Gliotoxin productivity of other Candida species was significantly lower. The retention time for gliotoxin was approximately 5.08 min.

• 한국균학회소식:학술대회논문집
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• 2014.10a
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• pp.13-13
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• 2014

Species belonging to the genus Fusarium are widely distributed and cause diseases in many plants. Isolation of fungal strains from air or cereals is necessary for disease forecasting, disease diagnosis, and population genetics [1]. Previously we showed that Fusarium species are resistant to toxoflavin produced by the bacterial rice pathogen Burkholderia glumae while other fungal genera are sensitive to the toxin, resulting in the development of a selective medium for Fusarium species using toxoflavin [2]. In this study, we have tried to elucidate the resistant mechanism of F. graminearum against toxoflavin and interaction between the two pathogens in nature. To test whether B. glumae affects the development of F. graminearum, the wild-type F. graminearum strains were incubated with either the bacterial strain or supernatant of the bacterial culture. Both conditions increased the conidial production five times more than when the fungus was incubated alone. While co-incubation resulted in dramatic increase of conidial production, conidia germination delayed by either the bacterial strain or supernatant. These results suggest that certain factors produced by B. glumae induce conidial production and delay conidial germination in F. graminearum. To identify genes related to toxoflavin resistance in F. graminearum, we screened the transcriptional factor mutant library previously generated in F. graminearum [3] and identified one mutant that is sensitive to toxoflavin. We analyzed transcriptomes of the wild-type strain and the mutant strain under either absence or presence of toxoflavin through RNAseq. Expression level of total genes of 13,820 was measured by reads per kilobase per million mapped reads (RPKM). Under the criteria with more than two-fold changes, 1,440 genes were upregulated and 1,267 genes were down-regulated in wild-type strain than mutant strain in response to toxoflavin treatment. A comparison of gene expression profiling between the wild type and mutant through gene ontology analysis showed that genes related to metabolic process and oxidation-reduction process were highly enriched in the mutant strain. The data analyses will focus on elucidating the resistance mechanism of F. graminearum against toxoflavin and the interaction between the two pathogens in rice. Further evolutionary history will be traced through figuring out the gene function in populations and in other filamentous fungi.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.51 no.3
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• pp.300-307
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• 2015

For selecting Bacillus strains producing high-quality Cheonggukjang, 8 strains were isolated from the different Cheonggukjang samples. Seven of them exhibited the highest 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity value of over 99.9% to Bacillus subtilis subsp. subtilis and one of them showed the similarity to B. licheniformis. All the strains showed positive activities for amylase, cellulase, protease and lipase, and 6 strains are positive for fibrinolytic activity. To confirm the safety of the strains isolated from the samples of Cheonggukjang which are manufactured by traditional method, strains were analyzed for the presence of seven toxin genes of Bacillus cereus and results were found negative. And 7 strains did not produce at all or merely produce both histamine and tyramine, the representative biogenic amines. Biogenic amine degradation analysis by HPLC revealed that, most of them exhibited tyramine degradation activity. For Cheonggukjang fermented by artificial inoculation of selected strains, fermentation property, sensory test, volatile basic nitrogen production and metabolic profiles by $^1H-NMR$ were tested. Seven strains were confirmed to make high-quality Cheonggukjang.