• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.28 no.12
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• pp.1955-1970
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• 2018

Several genetic strategies have been proposed for the successful transformation and expression of microbial transgenes in model and crop plants. Here, we bring into focus the prominent applications of microbial transgenes in plants for the development of disease resistance; mitigation of stress conditions; augmentation of food quality; and use of plants as "bioreactors" for the production of recombinant proteins, industrially important enzymes, vaccines, antimicrobial compounds, and other valuable secondary metabolites. We discuss the applicable and cost-effective approaches of transgenesis in different plants, as well as the limitations thereof. We subsequently present the contemporary developments in targeted genome editing systems that have facilitated the process of genetic modification and manifested stable and consumer-friendly, genetically modified plants and their products. Finally, this article presents the different approaches and demonstrates the introduction and expression of microbial transgenes for the improvement of plant resistance to pathogens and abiotic stress conditions and the production of valuable compounds, together with the promising research progress in targeted genome editing technology. We include a special discussion on the highly efficient CRISPR-Cas system helpful in microbial transgene editing in plants.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.1-5
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• 2001

Traditional culture technology of medicinal plants mainly depends on the field culture, which has many problems. With progress of modern culture technology, it has become possible to produce valuable secondary metabolites from medicinal plants. In this paper, we discuss about the pigment and saikosaponin production from too medicinal plants, Carthamus tinctorius and Bupleurum falcatum, through bioreactor culture system. A two-stage bioreactor culture system was established for the production of yellow and red pigments and saikosaponins by cell suspension cultures of Carthamus tinctorius and Bupleurum falcatum. In Carthamus tinctorius, balloon type airlift bioreactors and column type airlift bioreactors were employed for the tell culture and for the pigment production, respectively. The greatest pigment production was obtained on White medium supplemented with 4 mg/L kinetin, high levels of sucrose concentration and photosynthetic photon flux. In Bupleurum falcatum, adventitious roots were cultured in balloon type airlift bioreactors and the root growth was greatest on SH medium containing 5 mg/L IBA and 0.2 mg/L kinetin. HPLC analysis showed that the contents of main active saikosaponins a, c, and d in adventitious roots were almost the same as those in field cultured root.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.110-118
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• 2016

We compared germination efficiency for somatic embryos (SE) of Liriodendron tulipifera using semi-solid (SS), temporary immersion bioreactors (TIB), and continuous immersion bioreactors (CIB) to produce vigorous plants. The bioreactors were designed to be immersed in liquid media with plantlets with an adjustable immersion time. TIB and CIB improved germination rates up to 80.86% and 95.21%, respectively, however, CIB produced more hyperhydric plantlets than TIB. The height of plantlets in TIB was significantly higher than for those in CIB. Fresh weights of plantlets grown in CIB of were significantly lower than for those grown in TIB. The lowest chlorophyll concentration was found in in vitro plantlets from CIB. We examined abnormally developed leaves, stems, and apical zones of in vitro plantlets that were produced in CIB. Among the three types, SS showed the highest stomatal density and the shortest stomatal length in in vitro plantlets. After acclimatization, plants from CIB exhibited the lowest values in biomass, such as height, root collar diameter, leaf fresh weight, leaf length, leaf width, petiole length, petiole diameter, and leaf area. Photosynthesis and transpiration rates of ex vitro plants were not significantly different among the three culture types, but stomatal conductance was higher in TIB than in the SS and CIB. Therefore, the results suggest that TIB is the preferable bioreactor to improve in vitro plantlet regeneration of L. tulipifera. TIB-originated plants showed higher growth rate than SS and CIB after transferring to soil.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.112-118
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• 2009

Ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) are chemolithoautotrophs that play a key role in nitrogen removal from advanced wastewater treatment processes. Various AOB species inhabit and their community compositions vary over time in the wastewater treatment bioreactors. In this study, a hypothesis that operational and environmental conditions affect both the community compositions and the diversity of AOB in the bioreactors was proposed. To verify the hypothesis, the clone libraries based on ammonia monooxygenase subunit A were constructed using activated sludge samples from aerobic bioreactors at the Pohang, the Palo Alto, the Nine Springs, and the Marshall wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). In those bioreactors, AOB within the Nitrosomonas europaea, N. oligotropha, N.-like, and Nitrosospira lineages were commonly found, while AOB within the N. communis, N. marina, and N. cryotolerans lineages were rarely detected in the samples. The AOB community structures were different in the bioreactors: AOB within the N. oligotropha lineage were the major microorganisms in the Pohang, the Palo Alto, and the Marshall WWTPs, while AOB within the N. europaea lineage were dominant in the Nine Springs WWTP. The correlations between the AOB community compositions of the wastewater treatment bioreactors and their operational (HRT, SRT, and MLSS) and environmental conditions (temperature, pH, COD, $NH_3$, and $NO_3{^-}$) were evaluated using a multivariate statistical analysis called the Redundancy Analysis (RDA). As a result, COD and $NO_3{^-}$ concentrations in the bioreactors were the statistically significant variables influencing the AOB community structures in the wastewater treatment bioreactors.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.345-353
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• 2017

Plant expression systems have been developed to produce anti-cancer vaccines. Plants have several advantages as bioreactors for the production of subunit vaccines: they are considered safe, and may be used to produce recombinant proteins at low production cost. However, several technical issues hinder large-scale production of anti-cancer vaccines in plants. The present review covers design strategies to enhance the immunogenicity and therapeutic potency of anti-cancer vaccines, methods to increase vaccine-expressing plant biomass, and challenges facing the production of anti-cancer vaccines in plants. Specifically, the issues such as low expression levels and plant-specific glycosylation are described, along with their potential solutions.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.272-280
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• 2019

Forest medicinal resources, which constitute one of the non-timber forest products, have been regarded as healthy and highly valued products. To meet the increasing demand of the medicinal resources, it is necessary to improve the propagation methods of medicinal plants. In vitro propagation not only allows an opportunity for propagating plants in large numbers but also allows for enhancing the quality and quantity of the desired functional component of a plant by altering the growth factors, such as medium, carbon source, and plant growth regulators influence plant. There have been several studies of in vitro propagation methods, such as axillary bud culture, shooting, and embryogenesis, on Kalopanax septemlobus, Eleutherococcus sessiliflorus, Hovenia dulcis, and Schisandra chinensis in Korea between from 2000 through 2010. Furthermore, there have been attempts to proliferate callus and plantlets for producing useful natural compounds by using bioreactors. Here, we provide an account of the in vitro propagation methods of medicinal trees in Korea based on a review of several micropropagation studies.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.243-249
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• 2010

Molecular farming is production of pharmaceutically and industrially important proteins in plants. Plants and plant cell culture systems have been used as bio-factory to produce recombinant proteins such as monoclonal antibodies, enzymes, vaccines, hormones, interleukins, commercial enzymes and etc. The terms molecular farming, biofarming, molecular pharming, phytomanufacturing, recombinant or plant-made industrials, planta-pharma, plant bioreactors, plant biofactory, and pharmaceutical gardening are used interchangeably. Molecular farming can provide safe and inexpensive pharmaceutical proteins as well as commercial ones. In spite of several advantages of molecular farming such as safety and inexpensive cost, there are also a couple of drawbacks in the existing technology. One of them is low expression level of target gene in plants, which has been improved by optimizing gene-based codon usage, screening of strong promoters, expression of transcription factors, subcellular targeting of target proteins, chloroplast transformation, and transient expression using viral expression system (magnifection). Some plant-based commercial proteins have already been in markets and more than twenty plant-based pharmaceuticals have been in clinical trials, from that we can expect that several plant-based pharmaceutical proteins will be seen in the markets in the near future.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.185-194
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• 2006

Chloroplasts are believed to be descended from certain cyanobacteria, which were taken up by phagocytosis into a host cell and lived there in a symbiotic relationship. In contrast to the current static concept on the chloroplast genome, its dynamism has been recently demonstrated: the chloroplast genome is active in intramolecular homolgous recombination, producing subgenomic circles when it obtains homolgous sequences via genetic transformation. Chloroplast tranformation in higher plants provides many advantages over nuclear transformation that include higher expression levels of transgenes, polycistronic expression of transgenes, and maternal transmission of transgenes. Tobacco has been used as a model for chloroplast genetic transformation. However, it is recently possible to transform the chloroplasts of other major food and economic crops including rice, soybean, and cotton. Chloroplast-transformed crops will be able to replace bioreactors using microorganisms for production of value-added proteins in future.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.253-259
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• 2023

Bioreactors are devices used by sewage treatment plants to process sewage and which produce active sludge, and sediments separated by solid-liquid are treated in anaerobic digestion tanks. In anaerobic digestion tanks, the volume of active sludge deposits is reduced and biogas is produced. After dehydrating the digestive sludge generated after anaerobic digestion, anaerobic digested wastewater, which features a high concentration of organic matters, is generated. In this study, the decomposition of organic carbon and nitrogen was studied by advanced oxidation process. Ozone-microbubble flotation process was used for oxidation pretreatment. During ozonation, the TOC decreased by 11.6%. After ozone treatment, the TOC decreased and the removal rate reached 80.4% as a result of the Ultra Violet-Advanced Oxidation Process (UV-AOP). The results with regard to organic substances before and after treatment differed depending on the organic carbon index, such as CODMn, CODCr, and TOC. Those indexes did not change significantly in ozone treatment, but decreased significantly after the UV-AOP process as the linkage treatment, and were removed by up to 39.1%, 15.2%, and 80.4%, respectively. It was confirmed that biodegradability was improved according to the ratio of CODMn to TOC. As for the nitrogen component, the ammonia nitrogen component showed a level of 3.2×10² mg/L or more, and the content was maintained at 80% even after treatment. Since most of the contaminants are removed from the treated water and its transparency is high, this water can be utilized as a resource that contains high concentrations of nitrogen.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.24 no.11
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• pp.1574-1582
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• 2014

Bacteria recognize changes in their population density by sensing the concentration of signal molecules, N-acyl-homoserine lactones (AHLs). AHL-mediated quorum sensing (QS) plays a key role in biofilm formation, so the interference of QS, referred to as quorum quenching (QQ), has received a great deal of attention. A QQ strategy can be applied to membrane bioreactors (MBRs) for advanced wastewater treatment to control biofouling. To isolate QQ bacteria that can inhibit biofilm formation, we isolated diverse AHL-degrading bacteria from a laboratory-scale MBR and sludge from real wastewater treatment plants. A total of 225 AHL-degrading bacteria were isolated from the sludge sample by enrichment culture. Afipia sp., Acinetobacter sp. and Streptococcus sp. strains produced the intracellular QQ enzyme, whereas Pseudomonas sp., Micrococcus sp. and Staphylococcus sp. produced the extracellular QQ enzyme. In case of Microbacterium sp. and Rhodococcus sp., AHL-degrading activities were detected in the whole-cell assay and Rhodococcus sp. showed AHL-degrading activity in cell-free lysate as well. There has been no report for AHL-degrading capability in the case of Streptococcus sp. and Afipia sp. strains. Finally, inhibition of biofilm formation by isolated QQ bacteria or enzymes was observed on glass slides and 96-well microtiter plates using crystal violet staining. QQ strains or enzymes not only inhibited initial biofilm development but also reduced established biofilms.