• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.141-145
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• 2008

In this study, glucose-inducible intergenic sequences were used to generate bioreporters of the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 that could monitor environmental pollutants. Luciferase genes LuxAB from the marine bacterium Vibrio fischeri under the control of glucose-inducible intergenic seqeucens of eight genes (atpI, ndbA, ctaD1, tkt, pgi, pdh, ppc, and cydA) were successfully expressed in the cyano-bacterial transformants, showing 5-25 fold increases in biolumeniscence upon exposure to glucose. In addition, glucose-inducible cyanobacterial bioreporters were very sensitive to various chemicals such as heavy metals ($Hg^{2+}$, $Cu^{2+}$, $Zn^{2+}$), electron transport inhibitors (DCMU, DBMIB, $CN^-$), and antibiotics (chloramphenicol and rifampicin). These glucose-inducible cyanobacterial bioreporters would be useful to develop biosensors for rapid screening of environmental samples.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.50-56
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• 2003

A freshwater bloom-forming cyanobacterium, Microcystis aeruginosa, and local soil isolate Scytonema sp. strain BT 23 were demonstrated to contain biotoxic secondary metabolites with pesticidal and mosquito larvicidal activities. A purified toxic constituent from M aeruginosa showed an absorption maximum at 230 nm and its toxicity symptoms, Rf value on TLC, and retention time observed ill an HPLC analysis were similar to those of the hepatotoxic heptapeptide microcystin-LR. The bioactive constituent of the Scytonema sp. was less polar in nature and exhibited two peaks at 240 and 285 m. When applied to two cruciffrous pests, Pieris brassicae and Plutella flostella, the crude extracts and toxic principles from the two cyanobacteria showed significant antifeedant activity in a no-choice bioassay, and at higher concenuations exhibited contact toxicity to the insect larvae. The purified toxin from M. aeruginosa was found to be more effective and produced 97.5 and $92.8\%$ larval mortality in the two pests, fo11owing 2 h of toxin treatment at a concentration of $25{\mu}g$ Per leaf disc (2.5 cm dia.). Meanwhile, similar treatment with the purified toxin from Sytonema sp. stain BT 23 only produced 73 and $78\%$ mortality in the two pests. The cyanobacterial constituents also showed significant activity against Culex and Anopheles larvae. The M. aeruginosa toxin ($20{\mu}g\;ml^-1$) caused 98.2 and $88.1\%$ mortality in the Culex and Anopheles larvae, respectively, while the purified toxin from the Sytonema sp. was less toxic and only produced a 96.3 and $91.2\%$ mortality, respectively, at a much higher concentration ($40{\mu}g\;ml^-1$). Accordingly, the current results point to certain hitherto unknown biological properties of cyanobacterial biotoxins.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.24 no.8
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• pp.1015-1025
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• 2014

Microorganisms that live in the rhizosphere play a pivotal role in the functioning and maintenance of soil ecosystems. The study of rhizospheric cyanobacteria has been hampered by the difficulty to culture and maintain them in the laboratory. The present work investigated the production of the plant hormone indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) and the potential of biofilm formation on the rhizoplane of pea plants by two cyanobacterial strains, isolated from rice rhizosphere. The unicellular cyanobacteria Chroococcidiopsis sp. MMG-5 and Synechocystis sp. MMG-8 that were isolated from a rice rhizosphere, were investigated. Production of IAA by Chroococcidiopsis sp. MMG-5 and Synechocystis sp. MMG-8 was measured under experimental conditions (pH and light). The bioactivity of the cyanobacterial auxin was demonstrated through the alteration of the rooting pattern of Pisum sativum seedlings. The increase in the concentration of L-tryptophan and the time that this amino acid was present in the medium resulted in a significant enhancement of the synthesis of IAA (r > 0.900 at p = 0.01). There was also a significant correlation between the concentration of IAA in the supernatant of the cyanobacteria cultures and the root length and number of the pea seedlings. Observations made by confocal laser scanning microscopy revealed the presence of cyanobacteria on the surface of the roots and also provided evidence for the penetration of the cyanobacteria in the endorhizosphere. We show that the synthesis of IAA by Chroococcidiopsis sp. MMG-5 and Synechocystis sp. MMG-8 occurs under different environmental conditions and that the auxin is important for the development of the seedling roots and for establishing an intimate symbiosis between cyanobacteria and host plants.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.48 no.5
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• pp.467-472
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• 2004

Cyanobacterial toxins, microcystins which exist in korean lakes show strong toxicity to fish, cattles and human. In this study, we tried to degrade microcystin LR using various chemical oxidants, Chlorine, Potassium permanganate and Hydrogen Peroxide. The detection method for the concentrations of microcystin LR in water samples was Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) method using the monoclonal antibody of microcystin. Chlorine degraded microcystin LR effectively at the concentration of 800 pg/mL microcystin LR and 12 ppm chlorine. The reaction took 40 minutes at pH 7. Potassium Permanganate also degraded microcystin LR successfully at the concentration of 2000 pg/mL microcystin LR and 1.2 ppm chlorine. The degradation reaction took 60 minutes at pH 7. In the case of hydrogen peroxide, the degradation rate of microcystin LR was very slow because of the slow reaction rate.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.205-210
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• 2004

The change of bacterial communities during cyanobacterial bloom was analyzed by DGGE in Daechung Reservoir from July to October in 2003. The traditional morphological analysis showed that the genera of Microcystis, Chroococcus, Oscillatoria, and Phormidium were dominated. The most frequent band in the DGGE profile by 16S rDNA sequence analysis was identified as Microcystis flos-aquae and the cyanobacterial bloom was peaked on September 2. Oscillatoria spp. were also identified and Aphanizomenon flos-aquae dominated in the middle of August. Judging from the analysis of the digitalized DGGE profiles using the cluster analysis technique, the microbial community on September 2 was considerably different from others. Consequently, it seems that the gene fingerprinting method can give not only the similar results to the traditional morphological method but also additional information on the bacterial species and similarity among the examined microbial communities.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.104-110
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• 2010

Photobiological hydrogen production by nitrogen-fixing unicellular cyanobacteria has long been considered to be an environmentally sound and very promising method for the future supply of renewable clean energy. We tried to find out the optimum cell concentration for $H_2$ production in each of the two new Korean nitrogen-fixing unicellular cyanobacterial strains to compare with Synechococcus sp. strain Miami BG043511. The two Korean strains, Cyanothece sp. KNU CB MAL-031 and KNU CB MAL-058, were isolated from Korean west coasts. Cell concentrations up to 17 billion cells $ml^{-1}$ were applied to the tests. High cell concentration over 15 billion cells $ml^{-1}$ resulted in drastically reduced $H_2$ production in all the three strains. The two domestic strains, however, produced 2-3 time more hydrogen than Synechococcus sp. Miami BG043511 at cell concentrations of 5-10 billion cells $ml^{-1}$. At lower cell concentrations than 2 billion cells $ml^{-1}$, MAL-031 exhibited highest $H_2$ production followed by Miami BG043511, with far less production in MAL-058. Present result suggests that Cyanothece sp. MAL-CB031 might be one of the ideal nitrogen-fixing unicellular cyanobacterial strains for the photobiological hydrogen production.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.287-292
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• 2005

The cyanobacterial diversity was analyzed by restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) of PCR-amplified rpcBA-Intergenic Spacer (IGS) genes and cpcBA-IGS gene sequencing with a sample collected at Chuso-ri in Daechung Reservoir on March 15, 2005, The Shannon-Weiner diversity index was 0.65, indicating that the cyanobacterial community structure was simple. PCR-RFLP profiles obtained were Phormidium spp. (58 clones), Anabaena spp. (14 clones), Microcystis spp. (4 clones), Spirulina sp. (1 clone) and uncultured cyanobacteria (2 clones). The PCR-RFLP of cpcBA-IGS revealed that Phormidium spp. and Anabaena spp. dominated in the invested sample. As a consequence, it seems that the analysis of functional genes such as cpcBA-IGS can be used for the species identification and community analysis of cyanobacteria.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.20-29
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• 2023

This study analyzed the relationship between harmful cyanobacterial abundance and environmental factors in order to figure out the causes of the recent increase of cyanobacteria in Lake Dukdong from 2019 to 2021. Lake Dukdong, which is used as a drinking water source for Gyeongju City, has an algae alert system in place. Lake Dukdong has maintained good water quality, but algae alert level 1 (over 1,000 cells/mL) has been issued in recent years. As a result of Pearson correlation analysis (from May to Oct.), the cell density of Microcystis and Aphanizomenon, which form part of the most harmful cyanobacteria genus, were significantly positively correlated with the water temperature and water storage volume. T-test was performed to compare the data from 2016-2018 and 2019-2021 (from May to Oct.). The average density of harmful cyanobacteria cells increased about six-fold from 54 to 344 cells/mL. There were significant differences in water temperature, pH, total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), TN/TP ratio, water storage volume, and cyanobacterial cell density. Water temperature increased from 19.2 to 22.8 ℃. TP concentration increased from 0.017 to 0.028 mg/L. The main cause of the recent increase of harmful cyanobacteria in Lake Dukdong is thought to be the increase in water temperature, TP concentration, and water storage volume from 2019 and 2021, resulting in more favorable conditions for cyanobacterial growth.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2023.05a
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• pp.168-168
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• 2023

The frequent occurrence of cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (CHABs) in inland waters under climate change seriously damages the ecosystem and human health and is becoming a big problem in South Korea. Satellite remote sensing is suggested for effective monitoring CHABs at a larger scale of water bodies since the traditional method based on sparse in-situ networks is limited in space. However, utilizing a standalone variable of satellite reflectances in common CHABs dual-models, which relies on both chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) and phycocyanin or cyanobacteria cells (Cyano-cell), is not fully beneficial because their seasonal variation is highly impacted by surrounding meteorological and bio-environmental factors. Along with the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI), monitoring CHABs from space with analyzing the effects of environmental factors is accessible. This study aimed to investigate the potential application of AI in the dual-model strategy (Chl-a and Cyano-cell are output parameters) for monitoring seasonal dynamics of CHABs from satellites over Korean inland waters. The Sentinel-3 satellite was selected in this study due to the variety of spectral bands and its unique band (620 nm), which is sensitive to cyanobacteria. Via the AI-based feature selection, we analyzed the relationships between two output parameters and major parameters (satellite water-leaving reflectances at different spectral bands), together with auxiliary (meteorological and bio-environmental) parameters, to select the most important ones. Several AI models were then employed for modelling Chl-a and Cyano-cell concentration from those selected important parameters. Performance evaluation of the AI models and their comparison to traditional semi-analytical models were conducted to demonstrate whether AI models (using water-leaving reflectances and environmental variables) outperform traditional models (using water-leaving reflectances only) and which AI models are superior for monitoring CHABs from Sentinel-3 satellite over a Korean inland water body.

• ALGAE
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.93-110
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• 2023

Progress in phylogenomic analysis has led to a considerable re-evaluation of former cyanobacterial system, with many new taxa being established at different nomenclatural levels. The family Geminocystaceae is among cyanobacterial taxa recently described on the basis of polyphasic approach. Within this family, there are six genera: Geminocystis, Cyanobacterium, Geminobacterium, Annamia, Picocyanobacterium, and Microcrocis. The genus Geminocystis previously encompassed two species: G. herdmanii and G. papuanica. Herein, a new species G. urbisnovae was proposed under the provision of the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN). Polyphasic analysis was performed for five strains from the CALU culture collection (St. Petersburg State University, Russian Federation), and they were assigned to the genus Geminocystis in accordance with high 16S rRNA gene similarity to existing species, as well as because of proximity to these species on the phylogenetic trees reconstructed with RaxML and Bayes methods. Plausibility of their assignment to a separate species of the genus Geminocystis was substantiated with smaller cell size; stenohaline freshwater ecotype; capability to complementary chromatic adaptation of second type (CA2); distinct 16S rRNA gene clustering; sequences and folding of D1-D1' and B box domains of the 16S-23S internal transcribed spacer region. The second objective pursued by this communication was to provide a survey of the family Geminocystaceae. The overall assessment was that, despite attention of many researchers, this cyanobacterial family has been understudied and, especially in the case of the crucially important genus Cyanobacterium, taxonomically problematic.