• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.53-63
• /
• 2007

Soil risk assessment models were used to determine the goals of soil remediation and to establish the soil quality standards in developed countries. Recently, Korean Ministry of Environment prepared the guideline for soil risk assessment. Soil risk assessment model applicable to Korean situation will be needed in the near future. In this study, three models for soil risk assessment were extensively compared to suggest the fundamental components that required for the soil risk assessment in Korea. The models considered in this study were CalTOX in the United States, CLEA (Contaminated Land Exposure Assessment) in the United Kingdom, and CSOIL in the Netherlands. The major exposure routes and the intake estimation equations suitable for Korean situation were suggested. The exposure routes suggested were intake of the crops, underground water, indoor outdoor soil ingestion, dust inhalation and a volatile matter inhalation. The equations for intake estimation used in CalTOX and CSOIL seem to be applicable for the calculation of the human intake in Korea.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
• /
• v.38 no.4
• /
• pp.246-254
• /
• 2023

V. parahaemolyticus causes waterborne and foodborne disease such as acute diarrhea. In this study, V. parahaemolyticus isolates from seawater, fish tanks, and distributed fishery products in Jeju were investigated for potential toxin or species-specific genes (tdh, trh, tlh, and toxR) using RT-PCR and their genetic characteristics were analyzed using Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). Overall, V. parahaemolyticus of 90 strains (36.7%), including 33 strains from seawater, 8 strains from fish tanks, and 50 strains from fishery products, were isolated from 245 samples. All V. parahaemolyticus strains did not detect the tdh gene, whereas all strains detected tlh or toxR genes. In addition, trh genes were detected in 3 strains from seawater and 1 strain from fishery products. Monthly quantitative testing of seawater revealed that V. parahaemolyticus was positively correlated with water temperature. The 90 strains of V. parahemolyticus obtained in this study showed by gene homology between types, ranging from 64.0-97.3%. Among these, thirteen types showed 100% homology between genes. These results indicate that continuous monitoring is needed to facilitate food poisoning epidemiological investigations because some isolated V. parahaemolyticus strains harbored toxin genes and V. parahaemolyticus strains isolated from seawater, fish tanks, and distributed fishery products showed genetic similarity.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.12 no.4
• /
• pp.622-627
• /
• 2002

Diphtheria toxin repressor (DtxR) binds to approximately 30 to 35-bp regions containing an interrupted 9-bp inverted repeat within a 19-bp core sequence. The core sequence is fairly conserved and critical for DtxR binding. The flanking regions that are consisted of 5 to 8 more of nucleotides from the core are also required for DtxR binding. The nucleotides in both flanking regions are A-T rich. To examine whether the A-T nucleotides in both flanking regions from the core have significant roles for DtxR binding, a DNA fragment was constructed based on the diphtheria tox promoter/operator, and DNA fragments with substitution of A and T nucleotides In the flanking regions to G and C were also constructed. To assess the effect of these substitutions on binding of DtxR and repressibility by DtxR, $\beta$-galactosidase activity from lacZ fused to the region was assessed. Gel mobility shift of the region by purified DtxR was also examined. The DNA fragments containing the mutations in the flanking regions still exhibited repression and mobility shift with DtxR. The core segment with the mutation is still, therefore, recognized by DtxR. Nonetheless, the results from the assays indicated that the substitution significantly decreased repression of the operator by DtxR in vivo under high-iron condition and decreased binding of DtxR to the operator. These results suggest that A and T nucleotides fur both flanking regions are preferred for the binding of DtxR.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
• /
• v.24 no.1
• /
• pp.1-6
• /
• 2008

Biological and chemical sensors are the two most frequently used sensors to monitor the water resource. Chemical sensor is very accurate to pick up the types and to measure the concentration of the chemical substance. Drawback is that it works for just one type of chemical substance. Therefore a lot of expensive monitoring system needs to be installed to determine the safeness of the water, which costs too much expense. Biological sensor, on the contrary, can judge the degree of pollution of the water with just one monitoring system. However, it is not easy to figure out the type of contaminant with a biological sensor. In this study, an endeavor is made to identify the toxicant in the water using the shape of the chlorophyll fluorescence induction curve (FIC) from a biological monitoring system. Wem-tox values are calculated from the amount of flourescence of contaminated and reference water. Curve fitting is executed to find the representative curve of the raw data of Wem-tox values. Then the curves are digitalized at the same interval to train the neural network model. Taguchi method is used to optimize the neural network model parameters. The optimized model shows a good capacity to figure out the toxicant from FIC.

• Journal of Marine Bioscience and Biotechnology
• /
• v.5 no.4
• /
• pp.46-50
• /
• 2011

Phytoplankton forms the base of sea ecosystems. Various environmental factors and anthropogenic pollution, primarily, affect the concentration and photosynthetic activity algal cells, and the changes in the phytoplankton photosynthesis influence other elements of aquatic ecosystems. The increase in anthropogenic pollution markedly damages natural aquatic ecosystems, particularly, in the coastal zones, where an intense blooming of microalgae occurs, including the release of highly dangerous ecotoxic substances of various chemical natures (red tides). In this study, we tried to apply as a parameter for the algal blooming prediction in the ocean from fluorescence values in the taken samples around Busan coastal area. F0 value was almost constant but Fv/Fm value showed the irregular pattern. We presume that these results are due to the changes of the ocean environment and climate. To predict or give early warning the algal blooming, we need to investigate the specific area or fixed area through real-time monitoring. Especially, algal blooming prediction or warning can be achieved via continuously monitoring and interpretation of fluorescence changes.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
• /
• v.46 no.5
• /
• pp.576-587
• /
• 2020

Objectives: This study calculated local residents exposures to VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) released into the atmosphere using the CalTOX model and carried out uncertainty analysis and sensitivity analysis. The model validity was analyzed by comparing the predicted and the actual atmospheric concentrations. Methods: Uncertainty was parsed by conducting a Monte Carlo simulation. Sensitivity was dissected with the regression (coefficients) method. The model validity was analyzed by applying r² (coefficient of determination), RMSE (root mean square error), and the Nash-Sutcliffe EI (efficiency index) formula. Results: Among the concentrations in the atmosphere in this study, benzene was the highest and the lifetime average daily dose of benzene and the average daily dose of xylene were high. In terms of the sensitivity analysis outcome, the source term to air, exposure time, indoors resting (ETri), exposure time, outdoors at home (ETao), yearly average wind speed (v_w), contaminated area in ㎡ (Area), active breathing rate (BRa), resting breathing rate (BRr), exposure time, and active indoors (ETai) were elicited as input variables having great influence upon this model. In consequence of inspecting the validity of the model, r² appeared to be a value close to 1 and RMSE appeared to be a value close to 0, but EI indicated unacceptable model efficiency. To supplement this value, the regression formula was derived for benzene with y=0.002+15.48x, ethylbenzene with y ≡ 0.001+57.240x, styrene with y=0.000+42.249x, toluene with y=0.004+91.588x, and xylene with y=0.000+0.007x. Conclusions: In consequence of inspecting the validity of the model, r² appeared to be a value close to 1 and RMSE appeared to be a value close to 0, but EI indicated unacceptable model efficiency. This will be able to be used as base data for securing the accuracy and reliability of the model.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
• /
• v.13 no.2
• /
• pp.156-163
• /
• 2008

Luminescent bacterial toxicity test was first introduced in the early 1980s, registered as international standard method in 1998 and now widely used as a common toxicity test method. This toxicity test uses luminescent bacterium, Vibrio fischeri, originated from marine environment as a test organism. The degree of toxicity can be evaluated from the comparison of luminescent emission intensity between control and treatment groups to toxicants and materials from various environmental matrix for 30 min. This test can be carried out by using commercial products and its results are sensitive and precise. This research is on the feasibility of adopting luminescent bacterial test as a domestic standard test protocol. Using commercial products, a series of experiments were conducted to identify the precision and accuracy of injection volume and light emission, and to evaluate concentration-response relationship between chemical concentrations and light emissions. Also, the feasibility of the application to environmental media and quality assurance/quality control were checked. The results of serial toxicity tests revealed that the preliminary luminescent bacterial toxicity test was robust and suitable as a standard method.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.28 no.12
• /
• pp.2079-2094
• /
• 2018

Sunflower trypsin inhibitor (SFTI) is a 14-amino-acid bicyclic peptide that contains a single internal disulfide bond. We initially constructed chimeras of SFTI with N-terminal secretion signals from the Escherichia coli OmpA and Pseudomonas aeruginosa ToxA, but only detected small amounts of protease inhibition resulting from these constructs. A substantially higher degree of protease inhibition was detected from a C-terminal SFTI fusion with E. coli YebF, which radiated more than a centimeter from an individual colony of E. coli using a culture-based inhibitor assay. Inhibitory activity was further improved in YebF-SFTI fusions by the addition of a trypsin cleavage signal immediately upstream of SFTI, and resulted in production of a 14-amino-acid, disulfide-bonded SFTI free in the culture supernatant. To assess the potential of the secreted SFTI to protect the ability of a cytotoxic protein to kill tumor cells, we utilized a tumor-selective form of the Pseudomonas ToxA (OTG-PE38K) alone and expressed as a polycistronic construct with YebF-SFTI in the tumor-targeted Salmonella VNP20009. When we assessed the ability of toxin-containing culture supernatants to kill MDA-MB-468 breast cancer cells, the untreated OTG-PE38K was able to eliminate all detectable tumor cells, while pretreatment with trypsin resulted in the complete loss of anticancer cytotoxicity. However, when OTG-PE38K was co-expressed with YebF-SFTI, cytotoxicity was completely retained in the presence of trypsin. These data demonstrate SFTI chimeras are secreted in a functional form and that co-expression of protease inhibitors with therapeutic proteins by tumor-targeted bacteria has the potential to enhance the activity of therapeutic proteins by suppressing their degradation within a proteolytic environment.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
• /
• v.31 no.3
• /
• pp.245-251
• /
• 2015

Alternative hosts increase the difficulty of disease management in crops because these alternate hosts provide additional sources of primary inoculum or refuges for diversity in the pathogen gene pool. Agropyron cristatum (crested wheatgrass), Bromus inermis (smooth bromegrass), Pascopyrum smithii (western wheatgrass), Stipa viridula (green needlegrass), and Thinopyrum intermedium (intermediate wheatgrass), commonly identified in range, prairie, verge, and soil reclamation habitats, serve as additional hosts for Pyrenophora tritici-repentis, the cause of tan spot in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). A. cristatum (five lines), B. inermis (seven lines), P. smithii (four lines), S. viridula (two lines), and T. intermedium (six lines) were tested for their reactions to 30 representative P. tritici-repentis isolates from races 1-5. Plants were grown until the two-three-leaf stage in a greenhouse, inoculated individually with the 30 isolates, held at high humidity for 24 h, and rated after 7 days. All lines developed lesion types 1-2 (resistant) based on a 1-5 rating scale. Also, leaves from an additional plant set were infiltrated with two host selective toxins, Ptr ToxA as a pure preparation and Ptr ToxB as a dilute crude culture filtrate. All lines were insensitive to the toxins. Results indicate that these grass hosts have a limited or nonsignificant role in tan spot epidemiology on wheat in the northern Great Plains. Additionally, the resistant reactions demonstrated by the grass species in this research indicate the presence of resistance genes that can be valuable to wheat breeding programs for improving wheat resistance to P. tritici-repentis.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
• /
• 1995.11a
• /
• pp.355-357
• /
• 1995

Pt(80nm)/$SiO_2$(150nm)/Si 기판위에 $Ba_{0.7}Sr_{0.3}TiO_3$ 박막을 rf-magnetron Sputtering 방법을 이용하여 기판온도 590$^{\circ}C$에서 33nm 두께를 증착했을 때 비유전율은 268 이었다. 비유전율이 3.9인 $SiO_2$와 비교했을 때 유효 두께인 Tox는 0.45nm 이었다. 누설 전류 밀도는 1.5V 전압을 인가했을 때 $4.21\times10^{-7}A/cm^2$이었다.