• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.332-338
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• 2009

A xylan-decomposing bacterium, HY-20, was isolated from the gut of a honeybee, Apis mellifera, and identified as Bacillus sp. The extracellular GH11 xylanase (XylP) gene (687-bp) of strain HY-20 encoded a protein of 228 amino acids with a deduced molecular mass of 25,522 Da and a calculated pI of 9.33. The primary structure of XylP was 97% identical to that of B. pumilus xylanase (GenBank accession no.: AY526092) that has not been characterized yet. The recombinant His-tagged enzyme (rXylP) overexpressed in Escherichia coli BL21 harboring pET-28a(+)/xylP was purified to electrophoretic homogeneity by cation exchange and gel permeation chromatographies. The purified enzyme exhibited the highest catalytic activity toward birchwood xylan at pH 6.5 and $50^{\circ}C$ and retained approximately 50% of its original activity when pre-incubated at $55^{\circ}C$ for 15 min. The recombinant enzyme was completely inactivated by $Hg^{2+}$ (1 mM) and N-bromosuccinimide (5 mM), while its activity was slightly stimulated by approximately 10% in the presence of $Mn^{2+}$ (1 mM), $Fe^{2+}$ (1 mM), and sodium azide (5 mM). rXylP was able to efficiently degrade various polymeric xylose-based substrates but PNP-sugar derivatives and glucose-based polymers were not susceptible to the enzyme.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Embryo Transfer Conference
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• 2002.11a
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• pp.90-90
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• 2002

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of kind and combination of sugars on the viability and acrosome damage of post-thaw spermatozoa in canine. The extender used was Tris-citric acid extender (Tris-buffer) supplemented with 20% Egg-yolk, 8% glycerol, 1% Equex STM paste, and 70 mM sugars such as monosaccharide (fructose and xylose) and disaccharide(trehalose). To evaluate of sugar combination, the sugars supplemented in Tris-buffer were combined such as single (fructose, xylose, trehalose), two combinations (Fruc+Tre, Fruc+xyl, Tre+xyl) and three combinations (Fruc+Tre+Xyl). The concentration of sperm collected were adjusted of 50${\times}$10$\^$6/ per straw for freezing. The frozen spermatozoa were thawed at 37$^{\circ}C$ for 1 min and then analysis for CASA program in Livestock Improvement Main Center, NACF. The motility of post-thaw spermatozoa in Fruc+Tre was higher than those in fructose, trehalose, xylose, Fru+xyl, Tre+xyl and Fru+Tre+Xyl (79％ vs. 63, 66, 70, 71, 74 and 75%). The progressive motility after CASA analysis in Fuc+Tre group was also higher than those in fructose, trehalose, xylose, Fru+xyl, Tre+xyl and Fru+Tre+Xyl (67% vs. 53, 57, 60, 61, 62 and 64%). The acrosome damage of post-thaw spermatozoa stained was not significantly different among treatment groups such as fructose, trehalose, xylose, Fru+Tre, Fru+xyl, Tre+xyl and Freu+tre+xyl (17.7, 18.3, 28.0, 17.0, 19.7, 20.0 and 19.0%). The results indicated that the motility and progressive motility of post-thaw spermatozoa in Fru+Tre group was better, and acrosome normality was not different among all groups. The use of Tris-buffer supplemented with Fru+Tre as sugar for frezing of canine spermatosoa could be better and apply to semen banking and artificial insemination.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.195-201
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• 2003

Aromatic hydrocarbons are of major concern among genotoxic chemicals due to their toxicity and persistence. Some microorganisms can utilize aromatic hydrocarbons as carbon and energy sources by inducing expression of catabolic operon(s). The XylR regulatory protein activates transcription of the catabolic enzymes to degrade BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene) from its cognate promoters, Pu and Ps upon exposure of the cells to the aromatic hydrocarbons. The activity of XylR on the promoters was previously monitored using luciferase luc reporter system. The xylR, its promoter Pr and the promoter Po for the phenolic compound catabolic operon were introduced upstream of firefly luciferase luc in the pGL3b vector to generate about 7.1 kb of pXRBTEX. Here E. coli harboring the plasmid was freeze-dried under various conditions to fin,d optimal conditions for storage and transport. The cell viability and luciferase activity were maintained better, when the cells were freeze-dried at -7$0^{\circ}C$ in the addition of the 10% skim milk or 12% sucrose. However, coaddition of protectants such as 10% skim milk plus 10% glucose or 12% sucrose plus 10% glucose, resulted in much better viability and bioluminescence activity compared with the effect of single addition of each protectant. In addition, it was shown that the freeze-dried cells maintained almost intact bioluminescent activities and cell viability for at least 1 week after freeze-drying. This work demonstrated that the properly freeze-dried recombinant bacterial cells could be utilized as a whole-cell biosensor for simple and rapid monitoring of BTEX in the environment.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.54-60
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• 2014

Aromatic hydrocarbons are toxic environmental pollutants that are detrimental to the ecosystem and human health. Among them, chlorotoluene and nitrotoluene are toxic to hydrobios and irritate the skin, eyes, and respiratory organs of humans. We herein report the development of recombinant microbial biosensors for cheap and rapid monitoring of chlorotoluene and nitrotoluene compounds. Plasmids were constructed by inserting the xylR regulatory gene for BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene) degradation into upstream of Po' (the DmpR activator promoter Po with the deletion of its own upstream activating sequences) or Pu (the cognate promoter of XylR)::lacZ (the ${\beta}$-galactosidase gene) and transformed into Escherichia coli $DH5{\alpha}$. In the presence of inducers, the biosensor cells immobilized in agarose developed a red color in 1-2 h due to the hydrolysis of chlorophenol red ${\beta}$-D-galactopyranoside (CPRG), a substrate of ${\beta}$-galactosidase that was expressed by the inducers. Among BTEX, high responses were specifically observed with o-, m-, p-chlorotoluene ($0.1{\mu}M-100 mM$) and o-, m-, p-nitrotoluene (0.1 mM-100 mM). Po' demonstrated higher responses than those with Pu. The biosensors immobilized in agarose showed good stability after 21 days' storage at $4^{\circ}C$, and responses in untreated wastewater spiked with chlorotoluene and nitrotoluene, suggesting they can be used to detect compounds in wastewater.

• Toxicological Research
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.337-343
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• 2016

We determined the toxicity of mixtures of ethyl acetate (EA), isopropyl alcohol (IPA), methyl ethyl ketone (MEK), toluene (TOL) and xylene (XYL) with half-maximal effective concentration ($EC_{50}$) values obtained using human hepatocytes cells. According to these data, quantitative property-activity relationships (QPAR) models were successfully proposed to predict the toxicity of mixtures by multiple linear regressions (MLR). The leave-one-out cross validation method was used to find the best subsets of descriptors in the learning methods. Significant differences in physico-chemical properties such as boiling point (BP), specific gravity (SG), Reid vapor pressure (rVP) and flash point (FP) were observed between the single substances and the mixtures. The $EC_{50}$ of the mixture of EA and IPA was significantly lower than that of contained TOL and XYL. The mixture toxicity was related to the mixing ratio of MEK, TOL and XYL (MLR equation $EC_{50}=3.3081-2.5018{\times}TOL-3.2595{\times}XYL-12.6596{\times}MEK{\times}XYL$), as well as to BP, SG, VP and FP (MLR equation $EC_{50}=1.3424+6.2250{\times}FP-7.1198{\times}SG{\times}FP-0.03013{\times}rVP{\times}FP$). These results suggest that QPAR-based models could accurately predict the toxicity of polar and nonpolar mixtures used in rotogravure printing industries.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.24 no.7
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• pp.943-953
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• 2014

The XylH gene (1,167-bp) encoding a novel hemicellulase (41,584 Da) was identified from the genome of Microbacterium trichothecenolyticum HY-17, a gastrointestinal bacterium of Gryllotalpa orientalis. The enzyme consisted of a single catalytic domain, which is 74% identical to that of an endo-${\beta}$-1,4-xylanase (GH10) from Isoptericola variabilis 225. Unlike other endo-${\beta}$-1,4-xylanases from invertebrate-symbiotic bacteria, rXylH was an alkali-tolerant multifunctional enzyme possessing endo-${\beta}$-1,4-xylanase activity together with ${\beta}$-1,3/${\beta}$-1,4-glucanase activity, which exhibited its highest xylanolytic activity at pH 9.0 and 60oC, and was relatively stable within a broad pH range of 5.0-10.0. The susceptibilities of different xylosebased polysaccharides to the XylH were assessed to be as follows: oat spelts xylan > beechwood xylan > birchwood xylan > wheat arabinoxylan. rXylH was also able to readily cleave p-nitrophenyl (pNP) cellobioside and pNP-xylopyranoside, but did not hydrolyze other pNP-sugar derivatives, xylobiose, or hexose-based materials. Enzymatic hydrolysis of birchwood xylan resulted in the product composition of xylobiose (71.2%) and xylotriose (28.8%) as end products.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.115-119
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• 1998

We cloned the 4.8 kb BglII fragment containing genes downstream pHENX7 from Pseudomonas sp. strain DJ77. The restriction map of the resultant clone, recombinant plasmid pYCS500, was determined. Sequencing analysis of the 465 bp HindIII-ClaI fragment revealed an open reading frame of 282 bp that was then designated phnM. The deduced polypeptide is 93 amino acid residues long with a $M_r$ of 10,008. The PhnM has 37.3-53.9% identity with plant-type ferredoxin proteins such as NahT, XylT, DmpQ, AtdS, PhlG, PhhQ and TbuW and contains the motif similar to well-conserved functional domains of those proteins.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.70-77
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• 1994

The author isolated 7 mutant candidates which mapped around cysA (which was 10 o'clock). They were divided into two groups. One of them was located counterclockwise to cysA, and the other was clockwise to cysA. Since bldA was mapped counterclockwise to cysA, the candidate which mapped counterclockwise to cysA was transduced with phage containing wild type bldA gene clone. The candidates might be the alleles of bldA, because they were complemented by bldA clone. However some of such mutants sporulated very well and developed as much pigment as wild type on rich media plate. Their phenotype was not like bld mutant at all on such conditions. There were real antibiotics gene expressions, since transcriptional reporter gene xylE had shown high activities. Majority of the bldA like mutants showed act gene expressions when they were transformed with high copy number plasmid containing actII-ORF4.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.258-263
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• 1998

${\beta}$-Xylosidase was purified from the recombinant Escherichia coli carrying the Bacillus sp. KK-1 ${\beta}$-xylosidase gene (xylB). The molecular mass of the purified enzyme was estimated to be 62 kDa by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. However, the apparent molecular mass of the ${\beta}$-xylosidase was 140 kDa, indicating that the native ${\beta}$-xylosidase has an oligomeric structure composed of two identical subunits. The isoelectric point was determined to be pH 5.5. The enzyme was highly active on p-nitrophenyl-$\beta$-D-xylopyranoside but it barely hydrolyzed xylan substrates, and did not exhibit activity towards carboxymethylcellulose and p-nitrophenyl-${\beta}$-D- glucopyranoside. The enzyme had a pH optimum for its activity at pH 6.5 and a temperature optimum at $40^{\circ}C$. The enzyme activity was completely inhibited by the presence of $Hg^{++}$, and also markedly inhibited by D-xylose and D-glucose.

• Food Science and Preservation
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.532-541
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• 2008

A central composite design was applied to investigate the effects of the independent variables of NaOH concentration(X1) and extraction time(X2) on dependent variables such as Yield(Y1), Xyl/Ara ratio(Y2), uronic acid(Y3), $\beta$-glucan(Y4) and total sugars(Y5) of hemicelluloses separated from rice bran. The Coefficients of determination(R2) in various models ranged from 0.8626 to 0.9319. Yield increased with increased NaOH concentration and extraction time. The optimum extraction conditions were NaOH concentration at 2.45M and extraction time of 24.2 h. Predicted values at the optimized conditions were acceptable, compared with experimental values. The structural characteristics of an optimum hemicellulose extract were explored. As a result, it showed that the surfaces of hemicellulose had a highly irregular reticulated structure. And also it was both small and large molecular particle in the hemicelluloses. Their average molecular weights were in the ranges $235{\sim}240$ kDa and $8.0{\sim}9.4kDa$, respectively.