• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.310-316
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• 2021

Mobile phones used by healthcare workers are not only an indicator of the contamination of healthcare associated bacteria, but can also be another source of infection. The number and time of handwashing, mobile phone operation time and disinfection were highly relation with the bacterial contamination on the surface of mobile phone. Healthcare associated bacteria isolated from the mobile phone surface were 28 MRCoNS (48.3%), 14 S. aureus (24.2%), 3 MRSA (5.2%), 5 A. baumannii (8.6%), 3 MRAB (5.2%), 3 Entrococcus spp. (5.1%), 2 Pantoea spp. (3.4%), 2 A. lowffii (3.4%), 1 E. cloacae (1.7%), 1 P. stutzeri (1.7%), and P. mirabillis (1.7%). For isolation according to department, 2 MRAB from the emergency room and 1 MRSA from intensive unit, the radiology team and the rehabilitation medical team, respectively were isolated. As a result of the relation of isolates from the department of patient contact (ER, RT, GW, CP, ICU, RMT), the bacterial isolation rate was 75% and the department of patient non-contact (MRT) was 10%.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.124-129
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• 1997

This study was performed to develop the biological treatment technology of wastewater polluted with heavy metals. Heavy metal-tolerant microorganisms, such as Pseudomonas putida, P. aeruginosa, P. chlororaphis and P. stutzeri possessing the ability to accumulate cadmium, lead, zinc and copper, respectively, were isolated from industrial wastewater and mine wastewater polluted with various heavy metals. The effect of several external factors, such as temperature, pH and heavy metal compounds on heavy metal accumulation in the cells was investigated. The amount of heavy metal accumulation into cells according to the kind of heavy metal compound was slightly increased in the case of the heavy metal compound with -nitrate group, but generally, there is little change according to the kind of compound in the amount of heavy metal accumulation. The amount of heavy metal accumulation according to the precultured time was increased in the case of the cell precultured for 24 hours, but generally the precultured time did not affect to the amount of heavy metal accumulation. Heavy metal accumulation into cells was affected by several external factors, such as temperature and pH. The optimum temperature and optimum pH of the accumulation of heavy metal into cells were $20{\sim}37^{\circ}C$ and pH $6{\sim}8$, respectively. By increasing the concentration of each heavy metal-tolerant microorganism in the solution, the total amount of heavy metal accumulated was increased, whereas the amount of heavy metal accumulated per cell(mg, heavy metal/g, dry cells) was decreased. These results indicated that the amount of heavy metal accumulated was not proportional to the concentration of microorganisms.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.694-705
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• 2017

The aim of this study was to isolate and identify marine bacterium with anti-methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) activity, and to purify the anti-MRSA compound, as well as to determine its activity and synergistic effects. Among the marine bacteria isolated in this study, the YJ-1 isolate had the strongest anti-MRSA activity. The YJ-1 isolate was identified on the basis of its biochemical characteristics and an analysis of 16S rRNA gene sequences. The YJ-1 isolate showed over 99.2% homology with Pseudomonas stutzeri, and was designated as a Pseudomonas sp. YJ-1. The optimal culture conditions were $25^{\circ}C$ and initial pH 7.0. For the purification of the anti-MRSA compounds, the YJ-1 was cultured in Pa PES-II medium, and the culture filtrates were extracted by ethyl acetate, hexane, and 80% MeOH. The 80% MeOH fraction was separated by a $C_{18}$ ODS column, silica gel chromatography and a reverse phase HPLC, to yield three anti-MRSA agents, the MR1, MR2, and MR3 compounds. When the MR1 compound of $250{\mu}g\;mL^{-1}$ concentration was applied to the MRSA cells, over 95% of bacterial cells was killed within 48 hr. Compared with vancomycin and ampicillin, the MR1 compound showed significant anti-MRSA activity. In addition, the anti-MRSA activity was increased by dose and time dependent manners. Furthermore, the combination of an MR1 compound with vancomycin produced a more rapid decrease in the MRSA cells than did the MR1 compound alone. Taken together, our results suggest that the Pseudomonas sp. YJ-1 and its anti-MRSA compounds could be employed as a natural antibacterial agent in MRSA infections.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.142-148
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• 1997

This study was performed to develop the biological treatment technology of wastewater polluted with heavy metals. Heavy metal-tolerant microorganisms, such as Pseudomonas putida, P. aeruginosa, P. chlororaphis and P. stutzeri possessing the ability to accumulate cadmium, lead, zinc and copper, respectively, were isolated from industrial wastewaters and mine wastewaters polluted with various heavy metals. The effect of competing ions and metabolic inhibitors on heavy metal accumulation in the cells was investigated. Heavy metal accumulation into cells was drastically decreased in the presence of competing cation, $Al^{3+}$, and also decreased, at a lesser extent, in the presence of competing anions, $CO_3\;^{2-}$ and $PO_4\;^{2-}$. But heavy metal accumulation was not influenced generally in the presence of the other rations and anions. The accumulation of Cd, Zn or Cu by Cd-, Zn- or Cu-tolerant microorganism was remarkably decreased in the presence of metabolic inhibitors, but the accumulation of Pb by Pb-tolerant microorganism was little affected in the presence of metabolic inhibitors. These results suggested that the accumulation of Cd, Zn or Cu by Cd-, Zn- or Cu-tolerant microorganism was concerned with the biological activity depending on energy, and the accumulation of Pb by Pb-tolerant microorganism depended on not the biological activity but the physical adsorption on the cell surface. Each heavy metal-tolerant microorganism also exhibited some ability to accumulate the other heavy metals in solution containing equal concentrations of cadmium, lead, zinc and copper, when measured at 48 hours after inoculation of the microorganisms, but the accumulation rates were somewhat low as compared to the accumulation rates of heavy metal fitting to each tolerance. These results suggested that the accumulation of each heavy metal by each heavy metal-tolerant microorganism was a selective accumulation process.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.597-604
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• 2014

$\small{D}$-Phenylglycine aminotransferase ($\small{D}$-PhgAT) from Pseudomonas stutzeri ST-201 is useful for enzymatic synthesis of enantiomerically pure $\small{D}$-phenylglycine. However, its low protein solubility prevents its application at high substrate concentration. With an aim to increase the protein solubility, the N-terminus of $\small{D}$-PhgAT was genetically fused with short peptides ($A_1$ ${\alpha}$-helix, $A_2$ ${\alpha}$-helix, and ALAL, which is a hybrid of $A_1$ and $A_2$) from a ferredoxin enzyme of a halophilic archaeon, Halobacterium salinarum. The fused enzymes $A_1$-$\small{D}$-PhgAT, $A_2$-$\small{D}$-PhgAT, and ALAL-$\small{D}$-PhgAT displayed a reduced pI and increased in solubility by 6.1-, 5.3-, and 8.1- fold in TEMP (pH 7.6) storage, respectively, and 5-, 4.5-, and 5.9-fold in CAPSO (pH 9.5) reaction buffers, respectively, compared with the wild-type enzyme (WT-$\small{D}$-PhgAT). In addition, all the fused $\small{D}$-PhgAT displayed higher enzymatic reaction rates than the WT-DPhgAT at all concentrations of L-glutamate monosodium salt used. The highest rate, $23.82{\pm}1.47$ mM/h, was that obtained from having ALAL-$\small{D}$-PhgAT reacted with 1,500 mM of the substrate. Moreover, the halophilic fusion significantly increased the tolerance of $\small{D}$-PhgAT in the presence of NaCl and KCl, being slightly in favor of KCl, where under the same condition at 3.5 M NaCl or KCl all halophilic-fused variants showed higher activity than WT-$\small{D}$-PhgAT.

• Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.6.1-6.10
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• 2018

The intention of this study was to identify the bacterial pathogens infecting Oreochromis niloticus (Nile tilapia) and Clarias gariepinus (African catfish), and to establish the antibiotic susceptibility of fish bacteria in Uganda. A total of 288 fish samples from 40 fish farms (ponds, cages, and tanks) and 8 wild water sites were aseptically collected and bacteria isolated from the head kidney, liver, brain and spleen. The isolates were identified by their morphological characteristics, conventional biochemical tests and Analytical Profile Index test kits. Antibiotic susceptibility of selected bacteria was determined by the Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion method. The following well-known fish pathogens were identified at a farm prevalence of; Aeromonas hydrophila (43.8%), Aeromonas sobria (20.8%), Edwardsiella tarda (8.3%), Flavobacterium spp. (4.2%) and Streptococcus spp. (6.3%). Other bacteria with varying significance as fish pathogens were also identified including Plesiomonas shigelloides (25.0%), Chryseobacterium indoligenes (12.5%), Pseudomonas fluorescens (10.4%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (4.2%), Pseudomonas stutzeri (2.1%), Vibrio cholerae (10.4%), Proteus spp. (6.3%), Citrobacter spp. (4.2%), Klebsiella spp. (4.2%) Serratia marcescens (4.2%), Burkholderia cepacia (2.1%), Comamonas testosteroni (8.3%) and Ralstonia picketti (2.1%). Aeromonas spp., Edwardsiella tarda and Streptococcus spp. were commonly isolated from diseased fish. Aeromonas spp. (n = 82) and Plesiomonas shigelloides (n = 73) were evaluated for antibiotic susceptibility. All isolates tested were susceptible to at-least ten (10) of the fourteen antibiotics evaluated. High levels of resistance were however expressed by all isolates to penicillin, oxacillin and ampicillin. This observed resistance is most probably intrinsic to those bacteria, suggesting minimal levels of acquired antibiotic resistance in fish bacteria from the study area. To our knowledge, this is the first study to establish the occurrence of several bacteria species infecting fish; and to determine antibiotic susceptibility of fish bacteria in Uganda. The current study provides baseline information for future reference and fish disease management in the country.