• Mycobiology
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.286-290
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• 2014

Fungi are the known sources of irritation associated with atopic diseases (e.g., asthma, allergic rhinoconjunctivitis, and atopic eczema). To quantitatively estimate their presence in the indoor environment of atopic dermatitis-inflicted child patient's houses (ADCPHs), the high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters installed inside the air cleaners of three different ADCPHs were investigated for the presence of mold. The air cleaner HEPA filters obtained from the three different ADCPHs were coded as HEPA-A, -B, and -C, respectively, and tested for the presence of mold. The colony forming units (CFUs) corresponding to the HEPA-A, -B, and -C filters were estimated to be $6.51{\times}10^2{\pm}1.50{\times}10^2CFU/cm^2$, $8.72{\times}10^2{\pm}1.69{\times}10^2CFU/cm^2$, and $9.71{\times}10^2{\pm}1.35{\times}10^2CFU/cm^2$, respectively. Aspergillus, Penicillium, Alternaria, Cladosporium, Trichoderma, and other fungal groups were detected in the 2,494 isolates. The distribution of these fungal groups differed among the three filters. Cladosporium was the major fungal group in filters HEPA-A and -C, whereas Penicillium was the major fungal group in the filter HEPA-B. Nine fungal species, including some of the known allergenic species, were identified in these isolates. Cladosporium cladosporioides was the most common mold among all the three filters. This is the first report on the presence of fungi in the air cleaner HEPA filters from ADCPHs in Korea.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.438-446
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• 2013

Objectives: This study was performed in order to determine airborne fungi levels in homes and find related factors that may affect airborne fungi concentration. Methods: Fifty homes were study subjects for measuring airborne fungi. For sampling airborne fungi, the impaction method on agar plates was used and samples were counted as colony forming units per cubic meter of air ($CFU/m^3$). In addition, information regarding housing characteristics and atopic disease in each home were collected via questionnaire. Results: The geometric means (GM) of airborne fungi concentrations in fifty living rooms and bedrooms were 68.03 and 62.93 $CFU/m^3$, respectively. The GM of airborne fungi concentration in atopy homes was 78.42 $CFU/m^3$. This was higher than non-atopy homes' 54.34 $CFU/m^3$ (p-value=0.051). In the results of the multiple regression analysis, outdoor airborne fungal concentration proved a strong effective factor on indoor airborne fungal concentration. Also, construction year, floor area of house, indoor smoking and frequency of ventilation were factors that showed a significant association with indoor airborne fungi concentration. Conclusions: The results of this study show that some housing and living characteristics may affect the development and increase of airborne fungi. In addition, exposure to airborne fungi may be a risk factor for the prevalence of childhood atopic diseases.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.321-330
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• 2005

The antimicrobial activity of PHB/chitosan films and the quality of white bread packaged with the films were investigated. Chitosan film showed the highest antimicrobial activity and PHB(L) film also showed high antimicrobial activity against Fusarium solani KCTC 6636 and Penicillium citreonigrum KCTC 6927. White bread packaged with chitosan film had good moisture retention. $L^*\;and\;b^*$ of white bread increased but $a^*$ did little change during storage regardless of the film kind. The TBA values of white bread packaged with chitosan or PHB(L) film slowly increased during storage. The springiness of white bread packaged with PHB(M), PHB(L) and chitosan film was high. The colony forming units of microorganisms for white bread packaged with chitosan film were low during storage. Therefore, PHB(M), PHB(L) and chitosan films were superior to PHB(H) and PHB films as package material for white bread.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• v.57 no.1
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• pp.4.1-4.5
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• 2015

The study was performed to investigate the effect of dietary supplementation of a lipid-encapsulated Zinc oxide on growth parameters and intestinal mucosal morphology piglets born to Duroc-sired Landrace ${\times}$ Yorkshire dams. Twenty-four 30-day-old piglets weaned at 25 days of age were orally challenged with $5{\times}10^8$ colony forming units of enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) K88 and fed one of the four diets for 7 days: (i) a nursery basal diet containing 100-ppm ZnO (referred to as BASAL), (ii) BASAL supplemented with 120-ppm apramycin (referred to as ANTIBIO), (iii) BASAL with 2,400-ppm ZnO (referred to as HIGH), and BASAL containing 100-ppm lipid-encapsulated ZnO (referred to as LE). All piglets were killed at the end of the experiment for histological examination on the intestine. The results showed that the average daily gain (ADG), the villus height: crypt depth (CD) ratio in the ileum, and the goblet cell density of the villus and crypt in the duodenum, jejunum, and colon were greater in the LE-fed group that those of the BASAL (p < 0.05). Fecal consistency score (FCS) and the CD ratio in the ileum were less in the LE-fed group, compared to the BASAL-fed one (p < 0.05). The effects observed in the LE-fed group were almost equal to those of the HIGH-fed group as well as even superior to those of the ANTIBIO-fed group. Taken together, our results imply that dietary supplementation of 100-ppm lipid-encapsulated ZnO is as effective as that of 2,400-ppm ZnO for promoting growth diarrhea and intestinal morphology caused by ETEC infection.

• Journal of Dairy Science and Biotechnology
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.271-275
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• 2015

Colloidal semiconductor CdSe-ZnS core-shell nanocrystal quantum dot (Qdot) are luminescent inorganic fluorophores that show potential to overcome some of the functional limitations encountered with organic dyes in fluorescence labeling applications. Salmonella Enteritidis has emerged as a major cause of human salmonellosis worldwide since the 1980s. A rapid, specific, and sensitive method for the detection of Salmonella Enteritidis was developed using Qdot as a fluorescence marker coupled with immunomagnetic separation. Magnetic beads coated with anti-Salmonella Enteritidis antibodies were employed to selectively capture the target bacteria, and biotin-conjugated anti-Salmonella antibodies were added to form sandwich immune complexes. After magnetic separation, the immune complexes were labeled with Qdot via biotin-streptavidin conjugation, and fluorescence measurement was carried out using a fluorescence measurement system. The detection limit of the Qdot method was a Salmonella Enteritidis concentration of $10^3$ colony-forming units (CFU)/mL, whereas the conventional fluorescein isothiocyanate-based method required over $10^5CFU/mL$. The total detection time was within 2 h. In addition to the potential for general nanotechnology development, these results suggest a new rapid detection method of various pathogenic bacteria from a complex food matrix.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.357-368
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• 2016

Cambodia is the representative of developing country in Southeast Asia region. As a view point of water resource, Cambodia has in abundance but public sanitation problems persist in rural areas due to unsafe drinking water and untreated human waste. The purpose of this research is to prepare and develop new strategies for the water aid program in Cambodia by assessing, reviewing, and analyzing the present situation of water pollution for rural areas and the existing water use cycle in these regions. Pproyap and Langthle regions in Pursat province are selected as research areas. Cambodian's rural population in research areas relies on surface water stored in drinking-detention swamps, rain-water jars, and unprotected wells. The two types of main measures, thermotolerant coliform(TTC) bacteria and general pollutants, were conducted to assess the quality of selected water samples for research areas. TTC is a bacterial indicator of waterborne fecal contamination. For the 26 water samples, only one of the samples met the WHO standard for safe drinking water of 0 TTC colony forming units/100 mL.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.6-10
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• 2015

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) apply photosensitizers and light. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the in vitro efficacy of PDT using blue LED (light emitting diode) with photofrin and radachlorin for Propionibacterium acnes. The colony forming units method was used to assess the antibacterial activity. Suspension (1 mL) containing P. acnes at $1{\times}10^5CFU/mL$ were prepared and then 2 fold serial diluted to $12.5{\mu}g/mL$ from $50{\mu}g/mL$ concentration of photofrin and radachlorin. After 60 minutes incubation, light was irradiated for 10 to 30 minutes using the following light source of wavelength 460 nm, each energy density 36, 72 and $108J/cm^2$. Bacterial growth was evaluated after 72 hours incubation in a Phenylethanol Blood Agar (PEBA) culture. In addition, flow cytometric analysis were performed to measure the live cell after PDT. Also transmission electron microscopy (TEM) was employed to evaluate the effect of pathogens by PDT. The PDT Group was perfectly killed to all kind of photosensitizers dose of $12.5{\mu}g/mL$ with irradiation of 10 minutes. Also other Groups were killed to all kind of photosensitizers dose of $6.25{\mu}g/mL$ with irradiation time of 20 and 30 minutes. The flow cytometry showed a lower number of viable bacteria in the PDT group compared to the control group. The images of the TEM results were showed in cytoplasmic membrane damage and partially deformed to cell morphologies. These results suggest that radachlorin and photofrin combine blue LED PDT can be effectively treated when was proved treatment for acnes therapy.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.248-256
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• 2007

In this study, the competitive polymerase chain reaction (cPCR) was used to develop a direct enumeration method of Salmonella spp. in pork meat. After comparing three DNA extraction methods, the modified guanidine thiocyanate-phenol-chloroform method was chosen for Salmonella DNA extraction in artificially inoculated pork meat. The previously reported 284-bp invA gene (Rahn et al. Mol. Cell. Probes 1992) was tested for specificity, and 57 Salmonella strains and 24 non-Salmonella strains were evaluated. All Salmonella strains tested were invA positive, and all non-Salmonella strains produced no false positive amplification products. The detection limit achieved was as low as 1,460 colony-forming units (cfu) per 0.1g of pork meat. For cPCR, the invA gene, which features a 82 bp-deletion, was cloned in the pGEM-4Z vector. A known amount of competitor DNA, which has the same primer binding sites, was co-amplified with Salmonella chromosomal DNA from the artificially inoculated pork meat. The cell-number determined by cPCR was approximately equal to the cfu from the most probable number (MPN) method. Finally, the whole procedure took only 5 hr.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.354-359
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• 2003

Multiplex-PCR protocols were designed in order to make a rapid identification of MRSA. MecA, femB, and 165 rRNA genes were amplified for making a detection of MRSA. The incidence of MRSA in the clinical isolates of Staphylococcus aureus was examined by using a multiplex-PCR assay. The mecA gene was detected in 266 strains out of 336 clinical isolates of S. aureus, thus the incidence of MRSA was approximately 76.5%. The MRSAs of 247 strains (96.1%) showed resistance to more than eight species of the antimicrobial agents tested. The isolates of MRSA showed 27 different antimicrobial-resistant patterns. The results indicate that many different MRSA strains having high multidrug resistance are actually prevalent in Korea. Also, VISA was screened from the MRSA. Two strains were grown on the BHI agar plate supplemented with $8\;\mu\textrm{g}/ml$ of vancomycin at a frequency of $1/10^8$ colony forming units or higher.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.25 no.9
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• pp.1401-1409
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• 2015

The aim of this study was to develop a SYBR Green-based real-time PCR assay for the rapid, specific, and sensitive detection of Acidovorax avenae subsp. citrulli, which causes bacterial fruit blotch (BFB), a serious disease of cucurbit plants. The molecular and serological methods currently available for the detection of this pathogen are insufficiently sensitive and specific. Thus, a novel SYBR Green-based real-time PCR assay targeting the YD-repeat protein gene of A. avenae subsp. citrulli was developed. The specificity of the primer set was evaluated using DNA purified from 6 isolates of A. avenae subsp. citrulli, 7 other Acidovorax species, and 22 of non-targeted strains, including pathogens and non-pathogens. The AC158F/R primer set amplified a single band of the expected size from genomic DNA obtained from the A. avenae subsp. citrulli strains but not from the genomic DNA of other Acidovorax species, including that of other bacterial genera. Using this assay, it was possible to detect at least one genomeequivalents of the cloned amplified target DNA using 5 × 10⁰ fg/µl of purified genomic DNA per reaction or using a calibrated cell suspension, with 6.5 colony-forming units per reaction being employed. In addition, this assay is a highly sensitive and reliable method for identifying and quantifying the target pathogen in infected samples that does not require DNA extraction. Therefore, we suggest that this approach is suitable for the rapid and efficient diagnosis of A. avenae subsp. citrulli contaminations of seed lots and plants.