• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.71-80
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• 2017

Tea is the most popular beverage in the world. The three main types are green, black, and post-fermented. Post-fermented teas are produced by the microbial fermentation of sun-dried green tea leaves (Camellia sinensis). In this study, the composition of the bacterial communities involved in the production of traditional oriental post-fermented teas (Korean algacha, dancha, and Chinese pu-erh) were investigated using 16S rRNA gene analysis. The dominant microorganisms present in the post-fermented teas included the ${\alpha}$-proteobacteria Rhodobacteraceae and Sphingomonas, and the ${\gamma}$-proteobacteria Pantoea. Cluster analysis confirmed that the microbial populations present in both Korean and Chinese post-fermented teas grouped into the same class. Interestingly, the dominant microorganism present in the Korean post-fermented teas was a bacterium, while for the Chinese post-fermented tea, it was a fungus.

• The Korean Journal of Mycology
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.144-149
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• 2009

The occurrences of the major diseases and the densities of air-born microbes were surveyed in the cultivation facilities for oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus), king oyster mushroom (Pleurotus eryngii), and enoki mushroom (Flammulina velutipes) in different areas of Korea. Green mold disease was most often developed in oyster mushroom bed cultivation with the disease incidence rate of approximate 10% while the disease incidences from bottle and plastic envelop cultivation were less than 1~2%. In the bed cultivation, the major air-born microbes in the growth room were Aspergillus, Penicillium, Trichoderma, and Curvularia with the total fungal population density of 567~1,297 CFU/$m^3$ . However, only Trichoderma and Penicillium were detected in the growth rooms and innoculation rooms of bottle and plastic envelop cultivation with the densities of 350~700 CFU/$m^3$ and 160~260 CFU/$m^3$, respectively. The bacterial diseases become evident in the growth rooms of bottle and plastic envelop cultivation with the approximate incidence rate of 10%. The identified bacterial species were Brevibacillus levelkil, Rhizobium radiobacter, Brevundimonas vesicularis, Pseudomonas mosselii, Microbacterium testaceum. Sphingomonas panmi, Sphingomonas yabuuchiae, Paracocus dinitrificans, Curtobacterium flaccumfaciens pv. flaccumfaciens and some unidentified bacteria with the densities of 40~6,359 CFU/$m^3$ in the growth rooms and 9 CFU/$m^3$ in the inoculation room. This study indicated that the green mold disease by fungal strains was the major mushroom disease in the bed cultivation and suggested that the contamination of bacteria and fungi together in the growth media could result in severe production loss. The plastic envelope and bottle cultivation were evidenced to be less susceptible to such contaminations.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.52 no.2
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• pp.175-182
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• 2016

In this study, we isolated aromatic compounds (lignin polymers) utilizing bacteria in humus layer of oak forest and investigated phylogenetic characteristics and correlation with major bacterial populations in the humus layer by pyrosequencing. Forty-two isolates using aromatic compounds such as p-anisic acid, benzoic acid, ferulic acid and p-coumaric acid were isolated and phylogentic analyses based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that the isolates belonged to the genus Rhizobium, Sphingomonas, Burkhorlderia, and Pseudomonas. Among these, Burkhorlderia species which belong to Betaproteobacteria class occupied 83% among the isolates. The bacterial populations in humus layer of oak forest were characterized by next generation pyrosequencing based on 16S rRNA gene sequences. The humus sample produced 7,862 reads, 1,821 OTUs and 6.76 variability index with 97% of significance level, respectively. Bacterial populations consist of 22 phyla and Betaproteobacteria were the major phylum consisting of 15 genera including Burkholderia, Polaromonas, Ralstoria, Zoogloea, and Variovorax. Approximately fifty percentage of them was Burkholderia. Burkholderia as the majority of population in the humus was considered to play a role in degrading lignin in humus layer of oak forest.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.181-187
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• 2006

In this study, problems related with pH control in electrokinetic(EK) bioremediation of phenanthrene contaminated soil were observed, and the effects of pH control methods on the removal efficiency were investigated to search a further application strategy. In a preliminary experiment, it was found out by flask cultivation that a certain sulfate concentration was needed to degrade phenanthrene well using Sphingomonas sp. 3Y. However, when $MgSO_4$ was used as sulfate source in EK bioremediation, the bacterial activity reduced seriously due to the abrupt decrease of pHs in soil and bioreactor by the combination of magnesium and hydroxyl ions. When another strong buffering compound was used to control the pH problem, the good maintenance of the bacterial activity and pHs could be observed, but the removal efficiency decreased largely. When a low concentration of $MgSO_4$ was added, the removal efficiency decreased somewhat in spite of the good maintenance of neutral pHs. With the addition of NaOH as a neutralizing agent, the removal efficiency also decreased because of the increase of soil pH. Consequently the selection of electrolyte composition was a very important factor in EK bioremediation and some sulfate sources suitable for both bacterial activity and contaminant degradation should be investigated.

• Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.403-408
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• 1996

Total bacterial community DNA, which was extracted from microcosm soil and field soil after 2,4-D amendments, was analyzed on Southern blots, using the tfdA gene probe derived from plasmid pJP4 and the Spa probe from Sphingomonas paucimobilis. Southern blot analyses with total bacterial DNA extracted from soils Inoculated with Pseudomonas cepacia/pJP4 revealed that DNA probe method could detect the 2,4-D degrading bacteria down to $10^5\;cells/g$ dry soil. In the microcosm experiment, there was a good correlation between 2,4-D degradation and banding patterns in hybridization analyses performed after each 2,4-D treatment using the two probes. When bacterial DNA extracted from microcosm soil was hybridized with the Spa probe, a change in the position of hybrid bands was observed over time in a Southern blot, suggesting that population change or possibly genetic rearrangement in 2,4-D degrading microbial populations occurred in this soil. With the Spa probe, one hybrid DNA band was persistently observed throughout the five 2,4-D additions. When bacterial DNA isolated from the field soil was probed with the tfdA and Spa, strong hybridization signal was observed in the 100 ppm-treated subplot, weak signal In the 10 ppm-treated subplot, and no significant signal in the 1 ppm-treated and control subplots. The data show that DNA probe analyses were capable of detecting and discriminating the indigenous 2,4-D degrading microbial populations in soil amended with 2,4-D under laboratory and field conditions.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.101-110
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• 2021

Interactions between microalgae and heterotrophic bacteria are common in natural environments. This study investigated the effect of heterotrophic bacteria on the activity of the photosynthetic eukaryotic alga Chlorella sp. MF1907 when cocultured. A total of 31 heterotrophic bacterial isolates belonging to different genera were cocultured with MF1907. Interactions of the alga with Agromyces, Rhodococcus, Sphingomonas, Hyphomicrobium, Rhizobium, and Pseudomonas were positive, while those with Burkholderia, Paraburkholderia, Micrococcus, Arthrobacter, Mycobacterium, Streptomyces, Pedobacter, Mucilaginibacter, Fictibacillus, Tumebacillus, Sphingopyxis, and Erythrobacter were negative (p < 0.05). A turnover experiment demonstrating a switch from heterotrophic to autotrophic activity of MF1907 was performed using 16 isolates exhibiting apparent effects (positive, negative, or neutral). Compared with the results of the coculture experiment, eight isolates exhibited the same outcomes, while the others did not. Consistently, Pseudomonas and Agromyces showed a remarkable positive effect on MF1907 activity, and Burkholderia, Streptomyces, and Erythrobacter had a marked negative effect. Our results suggest that it may be possible to use the isolates for controlling populations of microalgae in natural and engineered environments.

• Animal Bioscience
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.709-717
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• 2024

Objective: Abnormally increased somatic cell counts (SCCs) in milk is usually a sign of bovine subclinical mastitis. Mutual interaction between the host and its associated microbiota plays an important role in developing such diseases. The main objective of this study was to explore the difference between cows with elevated SCCs and healthy cattle from the perspective of host-microbe interplay. Methods: A total of 31 milk samples and 23 bovine peripheral blood samples were collected from Holstein dairy cattle to conduct an integrated analysis of transcriptomic and metagenomics. Results: The results showed that Ralstonia and Sphingomonas were enriched in cows with subclinical mastitis. The relative abundance of the two bacteria was positively correlated with the expression level of bovine transcobalamin 1 and uridine phosphorylase 1 encoding gene. Moreover, functional analysis revealed a distinct alternation in some important microbial biological processes. Conclusion: These results reveal the relative abundance of Ralstonia and Sphingomonas other than common mastitis-causing pathogens varied from healthy cows to those with subclinical mastitis and might be associated with elevated SCCs. Potential association was observed between bovine milk microbiota composition and the transcriptional pattern of some genes, thus providing new insights to understand homeostasis of bovine udder.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.62-69
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• 2018

In the present study, long-term heavy metals (HMs) contaminated soil samples from a well-known Pb/Zn smelting area in the southwest of China were collected, and physicochemical and biological characteristics of these samples were evaluated. Soil samples contained different concentrations of HMs, namely Pb, Zn, Cu, and Cd. Enzyme activity analyses combined with microcalorimetric analysis were used for soil microbial activity evaluation. Results showed that two soil samples, containing almost the highest concentrations of HMs, also shared the greatest microbial activities. Based on correlation coefficient analysis, high microbial activity in heavily HMs contaminated soil might be due to the high contents of soil organic matter and available phosphorus in these samples. High-throughput sequencing technique was used for microbial community structure analysis. High abundance of genera Sphingomonas and Thiobacillus were also observed in these two heavily contaminated soils, suggesting that bacteria belonging to these two genera might be further isolated from these contaminated soils and applied for future studies of HMs remediation. Results of present study would contribute to the evaluation of microbial communities and isolation of microbial resources to remediate HMs pollution.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems Conference
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• 2003.09a
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• pp.94-97
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• 2003

Various bioinformatics tools for biological data processing have been developed and most of them are available in public. Most bioinformatics works are carried out by a composite application of those tools. Several integration approaches have been proposed for easy use of the tools. This paper proposes a new multiagent system architecture to integrate bioinformatics tools in the perspective of workflow since the composite applications of tools can be regarded as workflows. For the easy integration, the proposed architecture employs wrapper agents for existing tools, uses XML-based messages in the inter-agent communication, and agents are supposed to extract necessary information from the received messages. This allows new tools to be easily added on the integration framework. The proposed method allows various control structures in workflow definition and provides the progress monitoring capability of the on-going workflows. We implemented a prototype system of the proposed architecture for annotating the genes of a bacterium called Sphingomonas Chungbukensis DJ77.

• BMB Reports
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.399-404
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• 1999

2,3-Dihydroxybiphenyl 1,2-dioxygenase (2,3-DHBD), which catalyzes the ring meta-cleavage of 2,3-dihydroxybiphenyl, is encoded by the phnQ gene of biphenyl- and phenanthrene-degrading Pseudomonas sp. strain DJ77. We determined the nucleotide sequence of a DNA fragment of 1497 base pairs which included the phnQ gene. The fragment lncluded an open reading frame of 903 base pairs to accommodate the enzyme. The predicted amino acid sequence of the enzyme subunit consisted of 300 residues. In front of the gene, a sequence resembling an E. coli promoter was identified, which led to constitutive expression of the cloned gene in E. coli. The deduced amino acid sequence of the PhnQ enzyme exhibited 85.6% identity with that of the corresponding enzyme in Sphingomonas yanoikuyae Q1 (formerly S. paucimobilis Q1) and 22.1% identity with that of catechol 1,2,3-dioxygenase from the same DJ77 strain. PhnQ showed broader substrate preference than previously-cloned PhnE, catechol 2,3-dioxygenase. Ten amino acid residues, considered to be important for the role of extradiol dioxygenases, were conserved.