• Title/Summary/Keyword: anthrax

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Production of nitric oxide, interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor α from mouse peritoneal macrophages in response to Bacillus anthracis antigens

  • Yoo, Han-sang;Kim, Jae-wook;Cho, Yun-sang
    • Korean Journal of Veterinary Research
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    • v.39 no.2
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    • pp.301-310
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    • 1999
  • Anthrax caused by Bacillus anthracis is one of the most important zoonotic diseases. The bacterium produces several virulence factors. Of the factors, protective antigen (PA) of tripatite toxin has been identified as a central component in the pathogenesis of anthrax. However, precise roles of PA and other cellular components in the reaction with the target cells remain to be elucidated, especially in the initial stage of the disease. Three B anthracis antigens were prepared for investigation; PA, sonicated cellular antigens (S-Ag) and formalin-inactivaed whole cell antigens (W-Ag). PA was purified from culture supernatant of the bacterium using FPLC system with MonoQ. S-Ag and W-Ag were prepared by sonication and formalin inactivation of the cultured cells, respectively. Purity of the antigens was confirmed by SDS-PAGE and Western blot analysis. The roles of these antigens in the production of inflammatory mediators such as NO, IL-6 and $TNF{\alpha}$ from mouse peritoneal macrophages were investigated. PA alone did not induce the production of the inflammatory mediators while the other antigens, S-Ag and W-Ag, did in a dose and time dependent manner. These results suggested that in addition to major virulence factors, other cellular antigens are also involved in the initial stage of the disease by the induction of inflammatory mediators.

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Perspective on Bioterrorism in the United States (미국의 생물테러대책에 관한 고찰)

  • Kang, Young-gil;Kwon, Jeong- hoon
    • Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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    • v.5 no.1
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    • pp.10-27
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    • 2009
  • The fear briefly became reality in the U.S. after 9/11, as man-made anthrax spores were found in letters and in east coast post offices on a number of occasions. Anthrax attacks must be related to the terrorist attacks of September 11. These two accidents changed the situation completely. Characteristics are summarized as belows. First, it is necessary for all countries to create each own appropriate countermeasures against bioterrorism. In addition, it is urgent to consider countermeasures focusing on bioterror characteristics that terrorists may use biological agents because they can be extremely difficult to detect and do not cause illness for several hours to several days. Otherwise, those attacks will also show the panic and very real danger posed by the release of such toxins on an unsuspecting public. Second, it is crucial to manage the result thoroughly. A biological weapon is useful to a terrorist group mainly as a method of creating mass panic and disruption to a society. Because it is not easy to predict and collect information about how terrorists utilize pathogenic microbe as well as terror measures in their activities, more realistic approach should be taken to reduce damage. Third, to expand investment in research and development is necessary. Considering advances in microbiology and genetic engineering lately, it is likely that new pathogenic microbe would be created by the enemy. For that matter, it is imperative that medical countermeasures should be devised.

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Biological Control & Isolation of Chestnut Diseases by Colletotrichum Goeosporioides (밤나무 종실에 발생하는 탄저병균의 분리 및 친환경적 방제)

  • Kim, Young-Jae;Kang, Kil-Nam;Kim, Jong-Woo;Kim, Young-Myung;Lee, Sang-Hyeon;Hong, Suk-Il;Lee, Jae-Jun;Lee, Hyun-Su;Kim, Young-Kwon;Park, In-Seo;Cho, Yong-Gu
    • Korean Journal of Organic Agriculture
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    • v.21 no.4
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    • pp.725-736
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    • 2013
  • In order to acquire morphological characteristics and genetic characteristics of pathogen that causes anthrax to chestnut, anthrax was separate and identified in Gongju, chungnam chestnut plantation. Antagonistic microorganisms and plant extracts were selected for control of anthrax. Medium maturing variety treatment of 250 dilution fold in field was control at 71.2% and treatment of 500 dilution fold was control at 64.4% and treatment of 1000 dilution fold was control at 40.7%. Storage control value of Jabong in $25^{\circ}C$ after treatment in field is 61.7% at 250 dilution fold, 62.8% at 500 dilution fold, 40.9% at 1000 dilution fold treatment.

Proteome Profiling of Murine Macrophages Treated with the Anthrax Lethal Toxin (탄저 치사독소 처리에 의한 생쥐 대식세포의 단백질체 발현 양상 분석)

  • Jung Kyoung-Hwa;Seo Giw-Moon;Kim Sung-Joo;Kim Ji-Chon;Oh Seon-Mi;Oh Kwang-Geun;Chai Young-Gyu
    • Korean Journal of Microbiology
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    • v.41 no.4
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    • pp.262-268
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    • 2005
  • Intoxication of murine macrophages (RAW 264.7) with the anthrax lethal toxin (LeTx 100 ng/ml) results in profound alterations in the host cell gene expression. The role of LeTx in mediating these effects is unknown, largely due to the difficulty in identifying and assigning function to individual proteins. In this study, we have used two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis to analyze the protein profile of murine macrophages treated with the LeTx, and have coupled this to protein identification using MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry. Interpretation of the peptide mass fingerprint data has relied primarily on the ProFound database. Among the differentially expressed spots, cleaved mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase (Mek1) and glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase were increased in the LeTx treated macrophages. Mek1 acts as a negative element in the signal transduction pathway, and G6PD plays the role for the protection of the cells from the hyper-production of active oxygen. Our results suggest that this proteomic approach is a useful tool to study protein expression in intoxicated macrophages and will contribute to the identification of a putative substrate for LeTx.

Construction of the Genomic Expression Library of Bacillus anthracis for the Immunomic Analysis (면역체 분석을 위한 탄저균 유전자 발현 라이브러리의 구축)

  • Park, Moon-Kyoo;Jung, Kyoung-Hwa;Kim, Yeon-Hee;Rhie, Gi-Eun;Chai, Young-Gyu;Yoon, Jang-W.
    • Korean Journal of Microbiology
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    • v.46 no.1
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    • pp.21-26
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    • 2010
  • As the causative agent of Anthrax, Bacillus anthracis causes an acute fatal disease in herbivores such as cattle, sheep, and horses as well as humans. The therapeutics and prevention of anthrax currently available are based on antibiotics and the live attenuated vaccine strains, which may be problematic due to the emergency of antibiotic resistant strains or residual virulence in those vaccine strains. Therefore, it has been required to develop novel therapeutics and vaccines which are safer and applicable to humans. Recently, the development of the multivalent vaccine targeting both spores and vegetative cells of B. anthracis along with anthrax toxin has been reported. In our attempts to screen potential candidates for those multivalent vaccines, the whole genomic expression library of B. anthracis was constructed in this study. To the end, the partial digests of the genomic DNA from B. anthracis (ATCC 14578) with Sau3AI were ligated with the inducible pET30abc expression vectors, resulting in approximately $1{\times}10^5$ clones in E. coli BL21(DE3). The redundancy test by DNA nucleotide sequencing was performed for the randomly selected 111 clones and found 56 (50.5%) B. anthracis genes, 17 (15.3%) vector sequences, and 38 (34.2%) unknown genes with no sequence homology by BLAST. An inducible expression of the recombinant proteins was confirmed by Western blot. Interestingly, some clones could react with the antiserum against B. anthracis. These results imply that the whole genomic library constructed in this study can be applied for analyzing the immunomes of B. anthracis.

The temperature measurement at external auditory meatus using Infrared sensor in cattle (적외선 센서를 이용한 소 귀에서의 체온 측정)

  • Kim, Sheen-Ja;Lee, Young-Woo
    • Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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    • 2008.05a
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    • pp.401-404
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    • 2008
  • In livestock, diagnosis of disease is found on body temperature variation like a human. In case of cattle, body temperature variation can estimate disease that milk fever, toxication, diarrhea, dyspepsia, chronic enteritis, influenza, pneumonia, anthrax. So we are suggested the temperature measurement system for livestock. This system will be useful to a stock farmer and alternative that a worker.

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Disaster and Safety Response Management on the Bioterrorism and Biological War (생물테러 및 생물학전의 재해안전 대응방안에 대한 고찰)

  • Wang, Soon Joo;Byun, Hyun Joo
    • Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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    • v.3 no.2
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    • pp.119-128
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    • 2007
  • A bioterrorism attack is the deliberate release of viruses, bacteria, or other agents used to cause illness or death in people, animals, or plant. These agents are found in nature, but it is possible that they could be changed to increase their ability to cause disease, make them resistant to current medicines, or to increase their ability to be spread into the environment. Terrorists may use biological agents because these agents can be extremely difficult to detect and do not cause illness for several days. Some bioterrorism agents, like smallpox virus, can spread from person to person, like anthrax, can not. From these agents, we discussed the characteristics of biological agents and national safety regulation on the weapons of mass destruction including bioterrorism.

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Discrimination of Bacillus anthracis from Bacillus cereus Group Using KHT5 Marker (KHT5 마커를 사용한 Bacillus cereus 그룹에서 Bacillus anthracis의 구별)

  • 김형태;김성주;채영규
    • Korean Journal of Microbiology
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    • v.39 no.1
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    • pp.40-44
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    • 2003
  • Bacillus anthracis is a gram-positive spore-forming bacterium that causes the disease anthrax. In order to develop a DNA marker specific for Bacillus anthracis and to discriminate this species from Bacillus cereus group, we applied the randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD)-PCR technique to a collection of 29 strains of the genus Bacillus, including 22 species of the B. cereus group. A 709-bp RAPD marker (KHT5) specific for B. anthracis was obtained from B. anthracis BAK. The PCR product of internal primer set from the KHT5 fragment distinguished B. anthracis from the other species of the B. cereus group.