• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.39-44
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• 2010

Acidithiobacillus caldus is an acidophilic, chemolithotrophic bacterium that plays an important role in bioleaching. Gene transformation into A. caldus is difficult, and only the conjugation method was reported successful, which was a relatively sophisticated method. In this research, electrotransformation of A. caldus species was achieved for the first time using A. caldus Y-3 and plasmid pJRD215. Transformants were confirmed by colony PCR specific to the str gene on pJRD215, and the recovery of the plasmid from the presumptive transformants. Optimizations were made and the transformation efficiency was increased from 0.8 to $3.6{\times}10^4$ transformants/${\mu}g$ plasmid DNA. The developed electrotransformation method was convenient in introducing foreign genes into A. caldus.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.182-188
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• 2009

Lactobacillus spp., primary members of probiotics, have significant benefits for health and well-being of human. In this study Lactobacillus strains representing six species (L. paracasei KLB58, L. fermentum MS79 and KLB282, L. plantarum KLB213, L. gasseri KLB238, and L. reuteri KLB270) isolated from Korean adults were electrotransformed with plasmid pNCKH104. To determine optimal electrotransformation conditions, various conditions including cell wall weakening agent, electroporation buffer, electric field strength and time constant were tested for each strain. Overall, high transformation efficiency of approximately 2.5 ${\times}$ $10^3$ ${\sim}$ 5.5 ${\times}$ $10^4$ CFU/${\mu}g$ DNA was obtained where conditions of 0.5 M sucrose electroporation buffer, 1.8 kV pulse voltage and 5 ms time constant were applied. The common conditions developed in this study will make transformation of various Lactobacillus spp. easier than previous procedures.

• Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.38 no.5
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• pp.371-375
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• 1995

The antagonistic rhizobacteria Pseudomonas(P.) fluorescens against F. oxysporum and R. solani were isolated and selected, and then, their biological and physiological characteristics were investigated. The posibility and optimum condition of the electroporation of antagonistic rhizobacteria with Ps70, one of the selected one, and plasmid pSV2-neo was studied. Its optimum condition was found with HGEB which contains 1 mM (pH 7.0) hepes and 10% glycerol at setting of 200 resistance, 25 ${\mu}F$ capacitance, and 2.5 kV applied voltage. In addition, the transformation efficiency obtained with pSV2-neo was compared to other plasmids with different sizes. The applied voltage, the buffer composition and the parallel resistor (time constant) were shown to have the greatest effect on transformation efficiency in electroporation. And the rest of the selected rhizobacteria were also successfully transformed with pSV2-neo by electroporation.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.687-690
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• 1999

Bacillus stearothermophilus No. 236 isolated from the soil is a strong xylan degrader producing all the xylanolytic enzymes. However, the strain was discovered to be highly intractable to its transformation. In the present study, we have developed a reliable method for transformation of B. stearothermophilus No. 236 by a systematic examination of several factors which might have an influence on the efficiency of electrotransformation. Notably, we found that the most critical factor influencing the transformation efficiency (TE) was the incubation temperature after pulsing, with its optimum incubation of $37^{\circ}C.\; At\; 50^{\circ}C$, the optimum growth temperature of the B. stearothermophilus strain, the transformants could not be obtained at a recognizable level. The combination of field strength of 7.5 kV/cm along with pulse duration of 10 msec (resistance of $400{\Omega}\; and\; capacitance\; of\; 25{\mu}F$) was shown to be the best electrical parameters at the incubation temperature of $37^{\circ}$. A higher TE was obtained when the cells were harvested at an early-exponential phase. Twenty percent of PEG-8000 in a suspension buffer and an addition of 0.1% glycine in the growth medium resulted in about 4-fold and 3-fold increases in TE, respectively. We also found that the plasmid DNA which had been cycled through the host B. stearothermophilus cells enhanced TE by one order of magnitude higher. Under the presently described conditions, $2.5{\times}10^{5} transformants per ${\mu}g$ DNA was attained.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.77-83
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• 1999

Molecular biological techniques that recently developed, have made it possible to realize some of new attempts in the research field of rumen microbiology. Those are 1) cloning of genes from rumen microorganisms mainly in E. coli, 2) transformation of rumen bacteria and 3) ecological analysis with nonculturing methods. Most of the cloned genes are for polysaccharidase enzymes such as endoglucanase, xylanase, amylase, chitinase and others, and the cloning rendered gene structural analyses by sequencing and also characterization of the translated products through easier purification. Electrotransformation of Butyrivibrio fibrisolvens and Prevotella ruminicola have been made toward the direction for obtaining more fibrolytic, acid-tolerant, depoisoning or essential amino acids-producing rumen bacterium. These primarily required stable and efficient gene transfer systems. Some vectors, constructed from native plasmids of rumen bacteria, are now available for successful gene introduction and expression in those rumen bacterial species. Probing and PCR-based methodologies have also been developed for detecting specific bacterial species and even strains. These are much due to accumulation of rRNA gene sequences of rumen microbes in databases. Although optimized analytical conditions are essential to reliable and reproducible estimation of the targeted microbes, the methods permit long term storage of frozen samples, providing us ease in analytical work as compared with a traditional method based on culturing. Moreover, the methods seem to be promissing for obtaining taxonomic and evolutionary information on all the rumen microbes, whether they are culturable or not.