• Food Science and Preservation
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.154-157
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• 2003

To examine the quality changes of three typical fishes under usual storage conditions during marketing, we determined the total bacterial counts and pH values during storage of mackerel, croaker, and saury. Mackerels were stored at 0$^{\circ}C$ and on ice at 19$^{\circ}C$, which is the usual storage condition in a local market and croakers and saury were stored at 0$^{\circ}C$ and 4$^{\circ}C$. Total bacterial counts of mackerel, croaker, and saury were 3,2${\times}$10$^3$, 2.9${\times}$10$^3$, and 2.8 x 10$^4$CFU/g at the time of storage respectively. Total bacterial counts of mackerel stored on ice at 19$^{\circ}C$ increased during storage and reached to 8.4 x 10$\^$6/ CFU/g at day 6, while those stored at 0$^{\circ}C$ decreased up to 2 days of storage and increased to 5.6 ${\times}$ 10$^4$CFU/g. For croaker and saury, total bacterial counts at 0$^{\circ}C$ were 2.5 ${\times}$ 10$\^$5/ and 2.1 x 10$\^$5/ CFU/g at day 6, respectively, while those stored at 4$^{\circ}C$ had 3.6 x 10$\^$6/ and 2.6 ${\times}$ 10$\^$5/ CFU/g. the pH value or mackerel was 5.56 at the time or storage, yet it increased to 6.04. The pH changes of croaker and saury had a similar pattern with that of mackerel, which increased with time of storage. These results suggest that storage of fishes at 0$^{\circ}C$ should be better than those at 4$^{\circ}C$ or on ice at 19$^{\circ}C$ in terms of microbial safety as well as quality and shelf-life of fishes.

• Food Science and Biotechnology
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.594-603
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• 2009

The genus Bacillus includes a variety of diverse bacterial species, which are widespread throughout the environment due to their ubiquitous nature. A well-known member of the genus, Bacillus cereus, is a food poisoning bacterium causing both emetic and diarrhoeal disease. Other Bacillus species, particularly B. subtilis, B. licheniformis, B. pumilus, and B. thuringiensis, have also recently been recognized as causative agents of food poisoning. However, reviews and research pertaining to bacilli have focused on B. cereus. Here, we review the literature regarding the potentially toxigenic Bacillus species and the toxins produced that are associated with food poisoning.

• Environmental Mutagens and Carcinogens
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.26-31
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• 1998

Antimutagenic activity of Saururus chinesis (Lour.) Bail was investigated for food-borne mutagens using S. typhimurium TA98. Methanol extract from Saururus Chinesis (Lour.) Bail was fractionated into hexane, chloroform, ethylacetate and butanol fractions, followed by determination of antimutagenic activity for food-borne mutagenic heterogenic amines (HCA). The hexane fraction exhibited a strong antimutagenic activity for 2-amino-3-methylimidazo[4,5-f]quinoline (IQ), 2-amino-3,8-dimethylimidazo[4,5-f] quinoxaline (MeIQ), 2-amino-3,4-dimethyl-3H-imidazo[4,5-f]quinoline (MeIQx), 2-amino-1-methyl-6-phenylimidazo[4,5-b]pyridine (PhIP), 3-amino-1-methyl-5H-pyroid[4,3-b]indole acetate (Trp-2-A); however its fraction rather enhanced the bacterial mutagenicity of 2-amino-3,4,8-trimethyl-3H-imidazo[4,5-f]quinozaline (4,8-diMeIQx) and 2-amino-3,7,8-trimethyl-3H-imidazo[4,5-f]quinoxline (7,8-diMeIQx). Active principle in the fraction was found to be two major compounds (${\gamma}$-crene B and epi-bicyclosesquiphellandrane) and 6 minor compounds (${\delta}$-caryophyllene, ${\gamma}$-elemene, ${\beta}$-cabebene, ${\delta}$-cadinene, ${\delta}$-selinene, and patchoulene). Modulation effect for the mutagenic activity of the food-borne mutagenic HCA by the fraction might be derived from a cumulative effect of each individual compounds. Hence, this hexane fraction might be use to reduce the production of mutagenic HCA during cooking process of protein-rich foods.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.259-270
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• 2020

Listeria monocytogenes is a gram-positive, facultative anaerobe food pathogen responsible for the listeriosis that mostly occurs during the low-temperature storage of a cold cut or dairy products. To understand the systemic response to a wide range of growth temperatures, L. monocytogenes were cultivated at a different temperature from 10℃ to 42℃, then whole cell proteomic analysis has been performed both exponential and stationary cells. The specific growth rate increased proportionally with the increase in growth temperature. The maximum growth rate was observed at 37℃ and was maintained at 42℃. Global protein expression profiles mainly depended on the growth temperatures showing similar clusters between exponential and stationary phases. Expressed proteins were categorized by their belonging metabolic systems and then, evaluated the change of expression level in regard to the growth temperature and stages. DnaK, GroEL, GroES, GrpE, and CspB, which were the heat&cold shock response proteins, increased their expression with increasing the growth temperatures. In particular, GroES and CspB were expressed more than 100-fold than at low temperatures during the exponential phase. Meanwhile, CspL, another cold shock protein, overexpressed at a low temperature then exponentially decreased its expression to 65-folds. Chemotaxis protein CheV and flagella proteins were highly expressed at low temperatures and stationary phases. Housekeeping proteins maintained their expression levels constant regardless of growth temperature or growth phases. Most of the growth related proteins, which include central carbon catabolic enzymes, were highly expressed at 30℃ then decreased sharply at high growth temperatures.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.227-235
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• 2018

Foodborne illness represents a major threat to public health and is frequently attributed to pathogenic microorganisms on fresh produce. Recurrent outbreaks often come from vegetables that are grown close to or within the ground. Therefore, the first step to understanding the public health risk of microorganisms on fresh vegetables is to identify and describe microbial communities. We investigated the phyllospheres on Chinese cabbage (Brassica rapa subsp. pekinensis, N = 54). 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing targeting the V5-V6 region of 16S rRNA genes was conducted by employing the Illumina MiSeq system. Sequence quality was assessed, and phylogenetic assessments were performed using the RDP classifier implemented in QIIME with a bootstrap cutoff of 80%. Principal coordinate analysis was performed using a weighted Fast UniFrac matrix. The average number of sequence reads generated per sample was 34,584. At the phylum level, bacterial communities were composed primarily of Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes. The most abundant genera on Chinese cabbages were Chryseobacterium, Aurantimonadaceae_g, Sphingomonas, and Pseudomonas. Diverse potential pathogens, such as Pantoea, Erwinia, Klebsiella, Yersinia, Bacillus, Staphylococcus, Salmonella, and Clostridium were also detected from the samples. Although further epidemiological studies will be required to determine whether the detected potential pathogens are associated with foodborne illness, our results imply that a metagenomic approach can be used to detect pathogenic bacteria on fresh vegetables.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.462-468
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• 2013

Jeotgal is a generic term given to the high-salt-fermented seafood of Korea. This study aimed at developing an overview of the bacterial community present in Ojingeo-jeotgal, a highly consumed type of jeotgal, which is made with squid. Bacteria were isolated and purified from two samples on six different kinds of media and identified by 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis. Among the 121 total isolates, the most dominant genus was Bacillus, followed by coagulase-negative staphylococci (CNS) and lactic acid bacteria (LAB). CNS were detected in both samples, but LAB were observed in only a single sample. Six strains of Bacillus species inhibiting the growth of food pathogens, Staphylococcus aureus and Vibrio parahaemolyticus, were selected from the 121 isolates. These were found to inhibit the growth of both pathogens in addition to displaying proteolytic activities on media containing 6% NaCl and 2% skim milk.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.431-436
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• 1990

The functional properties of novel sugar derivative sweeteners, fructo-oligosaccharide, maltitol, sorbitol and high maltose syrup(HMS) were examined for their humactant effect, lactic acid bacterial growth, Streptococcus mutants growth and relative sweetness compared to sucrose. Sorbitol exhibited remarkably high water activity reducing capacity, whereas fructo-oligosaccharide and maltitol showed the same level as sucrose. Maltitol showed distinct anti-bacterial(bacteriocidic) effect against Stc. mutants and most of lactic acid bacteria tested except for L. plantarum. The molar basis relative sweetness of sugar derivatives in comparison with 1%(w/w) level of sucrose were 0.69 for Neosugar(fructo-oligosaccharide), 0.21 for sorbitol, 0.50 for maltitol and 0.27 for HMS.

• Korean journal of food and cookery science
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.256-263
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• 2017

Purpose: Essential oils are secondary metabolites of herbs and have antibacterial activities against foodborne pathogens. However, their applications for food protection are limited due to the hydrophobic and volatile natures of essential oils. Methods: In this study, essential oil nanoemulsions of rosemary and lavender were formulated with non-ionic surfactant Tween 80 and water using ultrasonic emulsification, and their antibacterial effects were determined. Results: The antibacterial activities of nanoemulsions were evaluated against 12 strains of 10 bacterial species, and significant antibacterial effects were observed against four Gram-positive and four Gram-negative bacteria but not against Streptococcus mutans and Shigella sonnei. In the disc diffusion test, the diameter of the inhibition zone proportionally increased with the concentration of nanoemulsions. Using cell turbidity measurement, minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) of the nanoemulsions, which is the lowest concentration reducing viability of the initial bacterial inoculum by ${\geq}99.9%$, was significantly higher than the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of the nanoemulsions. The largest bactericidal effects of lavender and rosemary essential oil nanoemulsions were observed against S. enterica and S. aureus, respectively. Conclusion: Nanoemulsion technique could improve antibacterial activity of essential oil nanoemulsions by increasing the solubility and stability of essential oils. Our findings shed light on the potential use of essential oil nanoemulsions as an alternative to chemical sanitizers in food protection.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.43-50
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• 2021

A newly cloned 4-α-glucanotransferase (αGT) from Deinococcus geothermalis and two typical bacterial αGTs from Thermus scotoductus and Escherichia coli (MalQ) were investigated. Among 4 types of catalysis, the cyclization activity of αGTs that produces cycloamylose (CA), a valuable carbohydrate making inclusion complexes, was intensively studied. The new αGT, DgαGT, showed close protein sequence to the αGT from T. scotoductus (TsαGT). MalQ was clearly separated from the other two αGTs in the phylogenetic and the conserved regions analyses. The reaction velocities of disproportionation, cyclization, coupling, and hydrolysis of three αGTs were determined. Intriguingly, MalQ exhibited more than 100-fold lower cyclization activity than the others. To lesser extent, the disproportionation activity of MalQ was relatively low. DgαGT and TsαGT showed similar kinetics results, but TsαGT had nearly 10-fold lower hydrolysis activity than DgαGT. Due to the very low cyclizing activity of MalQ, DgαGT and TsαGT were selected for further analyses. When amylose was treated with DgαGT or TsαGT, CA with a broad DP range was generated immediately. The DP distribution of CA had a bimodal shape (DP 7 and 27 as peaks) for the both enzymes, but larger DPs of CA quickly decreased in the DgαGT. Cyclomaltopentaose, a rare cyclic sugar, was produced at early reaction stage and accumulated as the reactions went on in the both enzymes, but the increase was more profound in the TsαGT. Taken together, we clearly demonstrated the catalytic differences between αGT groups from thermophilic and pathogenic bacteria that and showed that αGTs play different roles depending on their lifestyle.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.28-33
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• 1998

A gene coding for ${\beta}$-xylosidase from thermophilic xylanolytic Bacillus sp. KK-1 was cloned into Escherichia coli using plasmid pBR322. Recombinant plasmid DNAs were isloated from E. coli clones which were capable of hydrolyzing 4-methylumbelliferyl-${\beta}$-D xylopyranoside. Restriction analysis showed the DNAs to share a common insert DNA. Xylo-oligosaccharides, including xylotriose, xylotetraose, xylopentaose, and xylobiose were hydrolyzed to form xylose as an end product by cell-free extracts of the E. coli clones, confirming that the cloned gene from strain KK-1 is ${\beta}$-xylosidase gene. The ${\beta}$-xylosidase gene of strain KK-1 designated as xylB was completely sequenced. The xylB gene consisted of an open reading frame of 1,602 nucleotides encoding a polypeptide of 533 amino acid residues, and a TGA stop codon. The 3' flanking region contained one stem-loop structure which may be involved in transcriptional termination. The deduced amino acid sequence of the KK-1 ${\beta}$-xylosidase was highly homologous to the ${\beta}$-xylosidases of Bacillus subtilis and Bacillus pumilus, but it showed no similarity to a thermostable ${\beta}$-xylosidase from Bacillus stearothermophilus.