• Journal of Microbiology
• /
• v.39 no.4
• /
• pp.279-285
• /
• 2001

Vibrio parahaemolyticus is a halophilic bacterium associated with seafood gastroenteritis. An unusual strain of Kanagawa-positive urease producing Vibrio parahaemolyticus O1:K1 was isolated from the environment and identified . A polymerase chain reaction assay revealed that this strain harbored both the tdh and the genes. The urease from this strain was studied. Maximum urease production was induced in LB medium containing 0.2% urea, 0.5% glucose, 2% NaCl and pH 5.5 with 6h of culti-vation at 37$\^{C}$ under aeration. Purification of urease was achieved by the process of whole cell lysate, 65% ammonium sulphate precipitation, DEAE-cellulose ion exchange column chromatography, Sepharose CL-6B gel filtration and oxirane activated Sepharose 6B-urea affinity chromatography with 203 fold purification and 2.2% yield. Analysis of the purified enzyme by SDS-PAGE demonstrated the presence of the subunits with a molecular weight of 85kDa, 59kDa, 41kDa and the molecular weight for the native enzyme by nondenaturing PAGE and gel filtration chromatography was 255kDa. The purified urease was stable at pH 7.5 and the opeimal pH in HEPES buffer was 8.0 The enzyme was stable at 60$\^{C}$ for 2 h with a residual activity of 32% . The addition of 10$\mu$M if NiCl$_2$maintained stability for 30 min. The Km value of the purified enzyme was 35.6 mM in urea substrate. The TD$\_$50/(median toxic dose) of the purified urease was 2.5$\mu\textrm{g}$/ml on human leukemia cells.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
• /
• v.41 no.2
• /
• pp.253-265
• /
• 2008

Sustainable resource management(SRM) is regarded as the core strategy to achieve Dematerialisation and Decoupling of economic growth from the use of natural resources and environmental degradation. This paper presents status SRM policy and research in worldwide, and analyzes decoupling of economic activity from energy consumption of domestic manufacturing, using decoupling factor. Also This paper suggests methodologies and strategies of SRM in Korea. SRM is established through various analysis and survey as following; forecasting of resource demand, material flow analysis and value chain analysis, resource market structure analysis. Through these analysis, we can obtain hot-spot and solution of environmental burden, recycling market management, recycling technology and best-optimal supply rate of primary and secondary resource. In Korea, resource management system must be linked with national and regional material flow analysis, and it is necessary to make SRM-law of national dimension for effective run of sustainable resource management system.

• Genomics & Informatics
• /
• v.13 no.3
• /
• pp.70-75
• /
• 2015

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have been demonstrated to play an important role in carcinogenesis. Previous studies revealed that miRNAs are present in human plasma in a remarkably stable form that is protected from endogenous RNase activity. In this study, we measured the plasma expression levels of three miRNAs (miR-21, miR-27a, and miR-155) to investigate the usefulness of miRNAs for gastric cancer detection. We initially examined plasma miRNA expression levels in a screening cohort consisting of 15 patients with gastric cancer and 15 healthy controls from Korean population, using TaqMan quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. We observed that the expression level of miR-27a was significantly higher in patients with gastric cancer than in healthy controls, whereas the miR-21 and miR-155a expression levels were not significantly higher in the patients with gastric cancer. Therefore, we further validated the miR-27a expression level in 73 paired gastric cancer tissues and in a validation plasma cohort from 35 patients with gastric cancer and 35 healthy controls. In both the gastric cancer tissues and the validation plasma cohort, the miR-27a expression levels were significantly higher in patients with gastric cancer. Receiver-operator characteristic (ROC) analysis of the validation cohort, revealed an area under the ROC curve value of 0.70 with 75% sensitivity and 56% specificity in discriminating gastric cancer. Thus, the miR-27a expression level in plasma could be a useful biomarker for the diagnosis and/or prognosis of gastric cancer.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
• /
• v.6 no.5
• /
• pp.255-260
• /
• 2002

The effects of intracellular and extracellular pH on the inwardly rectifying $K^+$ (IRK) channel of the bovine aortic endothelial cells (BAECs) were examined using whole-cell patch-clamp technique. The IRK current, efficiently blocked by $Ba^{2+}\;(200{\mu}M),$ is the most prominent membrane current in BAECs, which mainly determines the resting membrane potential. The expression of Kir2.1 was observed in BAECs using reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) analysis. Intracellular alkalinization, elicited by the extracellular substitution of NaCl with $NH_4Cl$ (30 mM), significantly augmented the amplitude of IRK current. On the contrary, the amplitude of IRK current was attenuated by the Na-acetate (30 mM)-induced intracellular acidification. The changes in extracellular pH also closely modulated the amplitude of IRK current, which was decreased to $40.2{\pm}1.3%$ of control upon switching the extracellular pH to 4.0 from 7.4. The extracellular pH value for half-maximal inhibition (pK) of IRK current was 5.11. These results demonstrate that the activity of IRK channel in BAECs, probably Kir2.1, was suppressed by proton at both sides of plasma membrane.

• Korean Journal of Organic Agriculture
• /
• v.23 no.3
• /
• pp.423-453
• /
• 2015

This study started with two questions. The first question is 'Why does organic agriculture want to be linked with cooperative?' The second is 'What is the characteristics of the mutual relationship between organic agriculture and cooperative?', especially in Wonju. Up to now, there have been various kinds of discussion about cooperation between organic agricultural campaign and cooperative in Wonju. But there are few concrete data showing what role cooperative plays in the cyclical process of production-distribution-consumption of organic agriculture. Thus, we conducted a survey applying the Delphi technique to the 35 organic agricultural specialists active in Wonju. First, small-scale family farm producers established a social economic cooperative network in around 2003 to perform 'the activities of innovators' through forming an organization. Producers moved from the stage in which they were supported one-sidedly by consumers to the stage where they could 'lead' cooperation. Each farm organization built a vertical integration, and horizontal cooperative systems with other farm organizations. But, practical cooperative activities have remained in the doldrums. They tend to show trends deviating from the principles of organic agriculture and cooperative. Second, the relationship between producers and consumers in Wonju can be described as 'producer-consumer cooperative type'. In Wonju, the producers' organization is not a sub-contractor which simply deliver organic agricultural products to producers' cooperative, but is an equal subject which creates its own value chain. The cooperative (cooperative organization) leads distribution and consumption of organic agricultural products and mutual communication. But, the closeness between producers and consumers has got loosened. And, it is problematic that the proportion of local food consumption in Wonju is very low. There is a very strong tendency to ride the central distribution system of producers' cooperative coalition. Consequently, it is necessary for producers' cooperatives in Wonju to run a local food distribution system based on the 'cooperative system among cooperatives'.

• Food Science of Animal Resources
• /
• v.42 no.5
• /
• pp.800-815
• /
• 2022

This study aimed to obtain high Fischer's ratio oligopeptides from goat whey (HFO) and investigate antioxidant property of it. Hydrolysis of goat whey was done with the approach of sequential digestion of pepsin and flavourzyme. With the adsorption of aromatic amino acids by activated carbon, HFO with a Fischer's ratio of 27.070 and a molecular weight of 200-1,000 Da were obtained, and the branched-chain amino acids accounted for 22.87%. Then the antioxidant activity of HFO was evaluated. At the concentrations of 2.0 mg/mL and 0.50 mg/mL, HFO scavenged 77.27% and 99.63% of 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl and 3-ethylbenzthiazoline-6-sulphonate free radicals respectively. The scavenging rate of HFO against hydroxyl radicals reached 92.31% at the concentration of 0.25 mg/mL. Animal experiments demonstrated that HFO could moderate the changes of malondialdehyde, superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxidase caused by CCl₄-induced oxidative stress in vivo. This study indicated that HFO from goat whey was capable of oxidation resistance both in vivo and in vitro, which provided a scientific basis for the high-value processing and application of goat milk whey.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.17-26
• /
• 2009

On Aogashima Island, a volcanic island located in the southernmost part of the Izu Seven Islands Chain, vector magnetic anomalies were obtained in a helicopter-borne magnetic survey. The purpose of this study was to understand the volcanic structure of Aogashima Island in order to mitigate future disasters. Commonly, to obtain the magnetic structure of a volcanic island, total intensity anomalies (TIA) have been used, even though they have intrinsic errors that have not been evaluated correctly. Because the total intensity magnetic anomaly (TIA) is not a physical value, it does not satisfy Maxwell's Equations, Laplace's Equation, etc., and so TIA is not suitable for any physical analyses. In addition, it has been conventionally assumed that TIA is the same as the projected total intensity anomaly vector (PTA) for analyses of TIA. However, the effect of the intrinsic error ($\varepsilon_T$ = TIA.PTA) on the analysis results has not been taken into account. To avoid such an effect, vector magnetic anomalies were measured so that a reliable analysis of Aogashima Island magnetization could be carried out. In this study, we evaluated the error in TIA and used vector anomalies to avoid this erroneous effect, in the process obtaining reliable analysis results for 3D, vector magnetization distributions. An area of less than 1 A/m magnetization was found in the south-west part of Aogashima Island at the depth of 1.2 km. Taking the location of fumarolic activity into consideration, the lower-magnetization area was expected to be the source of that fumarolic activity of Aogashima Island.

• Asia Marketing Journal
• /
• v.11 no.3
• /
• pp.91-124
• /
• 2009

With the intensity of competition and the standardization of technical attributes in telecommunications service market increasing, differentiated activity and customer experience in service encounter is regarded as an important means for creating customer value, however, there is a dearth of good literature examining what MOT activity is composed of according to consumption chain, and how service quality of MOT has influenced customer performance. Especially there exist various services across different phase of Product life cycle(PLC) in household telecommunication service market, customer requirement for MOT might depend on whether its phase is introduction-growth stage or maturity-decline stage, the empirical study is completely lacking. This study classified household telecommunication services into two types by PLC, VOIP and IPTV as Introduction-growth stage services, Internet and PSTN as maturity-decline stage service, and investigated whether there exists a gap between service types in how consumer have experienced MOT, what they consider as important and the relative importance of quality dimension how service quality of MOT has influence on consumer performance. The empirical result from 858 participants shows that there is a difference in consumer experience and requirements across different phases of the PLC, tangibles and assurance are regarded as the most important service quality factors which have a positive influence on customer performance (consumer satisfaction, repurchase intention and word of mouth) at the introduction-growth stage, whereas, reliability, empathy and interactivity are at the maturity-decline stage. Finally, managerial implication is made, limitation is clarified and a direction for further studies is suggested.

• Journal of fish pathology
• /
• v.36 no.2
• /
• pp.277-286
• /
• 2023

Korean rockfish, Sebastes schlegelii, is a representative bony fish that belongs to the family Scorpaenidae and the order Scorpaeniformes. It has high ecological and economic value and is widely cultivated in many East Asian countries, including South Korea, Japan and China. One of streptococci, Streptococcus iniae, is Gram-positive cocci with a negative reaction for catalase and oxidase. The Korean rockfish shows clinical signs when infected with S. iniae, such as body darkening, bleeding, enlarged kidneys, blurred eyes, abdominal distension, etc., ultimately leading to death. The Korean rockfish causes significant economic losses every year in South Korea due to streptococcosis. In this study, we identified bacteria from the fish using polymerase chain reaction and conducted analyses of hemolytic activity and biochemical tests using API 20 STREP and API ZYM systems. Results of confirming the hemolytic activity (n=4) observed in alpha-type hemolysis (25%), beta-type hemol- ysis (50%), and gamma-type hemolysis (25%) of isolates. The biochemical test results exhibited sig- nificant variation among S. iniae. Additionally, we performed intraperitoneal injection with S. iniae in the fish and analyzed the phylogenetic tree using housekeeping genes of S. iniae, including cpsD, arcC, glnA, groEL, gyrB, mutS, pheT, prkC, rpoB, and tkt, via multilocus sequence typing (MLST). The lethal dose (LD₅₀) showed strong pathogenicity, such as 3.34 × 10 colony-forming unit (CFU)/ml for 23FBStr0601 strain and 7.16 × 10 CFU/ml for 23FBStr0602 strain. 23FBStr0603 strain showed relatively low pathogenicity at 1.73 × 10⁵ CFU/ml. The strains 23FBStr0601 and 23FBStr0602, which showed strong pathogenicity, clustered into one monophyletic group. The 23FBStr0603 strain showed weak pathogenicity and formed a monophyletic group with KCTC 3657.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
• /
• v.43 no.3
• /
• pp.195-203
• /
• 2015

Two bacterial strains, Bacillus licheniformis YB-1413 and YB-1414, producing extracellular α-galactosidase, were obtained from homemade Doenjang. On the basis of their biochemical properties, 16S rRNA sequences and random amplified polymorphic DNA patterns by polymerase chain reaction, they were found to be somewhat different from one another. α-Galactosidase productivities of the two isolates were increased by wheat bran, but drastically decreased by melibiose, raffinose and sucrose which were used as carbon sources. The enzyme productivities were increased by yeast extract as a nitrogen source with maximum levels of 1.87 U/ml for YB-1413 and 1.69 U/ml for YB-1414, respectively. The enzymes of both isolates exhibited maximum activity for hydrolysis of para-nitrophenyl-α-D-galactopyranoside (pNP-αGal) under reaction conditions of pH 6.0 and 45℃. Their hydrolyzing activities for pNP-αGal were drastically decreased by the addition of low concentrations of ribose and galactose. They were capable of hydrolyzing completely α-1,6 linked galactosyl residue in melibiose, raffinose and stachyose, which are known to be anti-nutritional factors in products of soybean and legume. In relation to the latter, the isolates YB-1413 and YB-1414 have potential applicability in improving soybean-fermented foods and the nutritional value of soybean feed.