Distribution of section at shochu fermenting places in Japan.

Koji mold, which belongs to the section , is used in the production of shochu. The section is composed of very morphologically similar members that in some cases produce mycotoxins, which rises concerns as to whether the presence of mycotoxin-producing fungi in shochu producing sites can compromise consumer safety. Thus, we examined the presence of mycotoxin-producing sec.

Detection and Determination of Fumonisins B, B, and B Contaminating Japanese Domestic Wine by Liquid Chromatography Coupled to Tandem Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS/MS).

Nine domestic wine samples collected from a Japanese winery were examined for the presence of fumonisin B (FB), fumonisin B (FB), and fumonisin B (FB), as well as ochratoxin A (OTA) and ochratoxin B (OTB). Wine samples spiked with C-labeled internal standards (C-FB and C-OTA) were diluted with phosphate buffered saline (PBS) buffer, loaded on immunoaffinity cartridges to purify of fumonisins and ochratoxins, and subjected to liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) analysis. The data revealed that the domestic wine samples were possibly contaminated with FB and FB, in addition to FB, whereas none of the tested wine samples were contaminated with OTA and OTB.

Fumonisin-production by section isolates from Japanese Foods and Environments.

Fumonisins are well known as mycotoxins produced by various species. Recently has been reported to be a fumonisin B (FB) producer. is a member of section .

[Analytical procedure of variable number of tandem repeats (VNTR) analysis and effective use of analysis results for tuberculosis control].

Variable number of tandem repeats (VNTR) analysis is one of the methods for molecular epidemiological studies of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. VNTR analysis is a method based on PCR, provides rapid highly reproducible results and higher strain discrimination power than the restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis widely used in molecular epidemiological studies of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Genetic lineage compositions of Mycobacterium tuberculosis clinical isolates differ among the regions from where they are isolated, and allelic diversity at each locus also differs among the genetic lineages of Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Clade analysis of enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli serotype O157:H7/H- strains and hierarchy of their phylogenetic relationships.

Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli serotype O157:H7/H-(O157) strains isolated in Chiba prefecture, Japan, during 2002-2009 were studied by lineage, subgroup, cluster, and clade analysis. Lineage analysis of 470 O157 strains with no known epidemiological relationships using lineage specific polymorphism assay-6 showed that there were 242 lineage I strains, 160 lineage I/II strains, 67 lineage II strains, and 1 atypical strain. Clade analysis of these strains by single nucleotide polymorphism in eight loci showed that lineage I contained all the clade 1, clade 2, and clade 3 strains, and some of the clade 4/5 strains.

Population genetic analysis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Beijing subgroup strains.

Population genetic analysis using variable-number tandem repeat (VNTR) data of 23 loci (15 "optimized MIRU" loci and eight "Beijing option" loci) was done on Mycobacterium tuberculosis Beijing lineage strains isolated in Japan. These strains were divided into Beijing subgroups (B(SUB)) B1-B5 and T2 by minimum spanning tree (MST) analysis. The Φ(PT) values among the B(SUB), a measure of their molecular variance, were significantly different from zero with 999 permutations, indicating the validity of B(SUB) classification using the 23 VNTR loci.

Biased distribution of IS629 among strains in different lineages of enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli serovar O157.

The distribution of insertion sequence (IS) 629 among strains of enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli serovar O157 (O157) was investigated and compared with the strain lineages defined by lineage specific polymorphism assay-6 (LSPA-6) to demonstrate the effectiveness of IS629 analysis for population genetics analysis. Using pulsed-field gel electrophoresis and variable-number tandem repeat typing, 140 strains producing both VT1 and VT2 and 98 strains producing only VT2 were selected from a total of 592 strains isolated from patients and asymptomatic carriers in Chiba Prefecture, Japan, during 2003-2008. By LSPA-6 analysis, six strains had atypical amplicon sizes in their Z5935 loci and five strains had atypical amplicon sizes in their arp-iclR intergenic regions.

Concordance of variable-number tandem repeat (VNTR) and large sequence polymorphism (LSP) analyses of Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains.

Variable-number tandem repeat (VNTR) and large sequence polymorphism (LSP) analyses were compared to determine whether VNTR analysis was effective for population genetic analysis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains. A total of 682 strains, 510 Beijing genotype and 172 non-Beijing genotype strains, were studied. The number of repeats was investigated for 24 VNTR loci: the 15 loci of "optimized miru", the 8 loci of "Beijing option", and 1 locus for "JATA12".