Publications by authors named "Seong-Joo Kim"

Bacillus subtilis WB800N is a genetically engineered variant of B. subtilis 168, such that all extracellular proteases are disrupted, which enables WB800N to be widely used for the expression of secretory proteins. Here, we report the 4.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

For a surrogate bacterium to be used in outdoor studies, it is important to consider environmental and human safety and ease of detection. Recently, , a popular bioinsecticide bacterium, has been gaining attention as a surrogate bacterium for use in biodefense. In this study, we constructed simulant strains of with enhanced characteristics for environmental studies.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Bacillus (B.) anthracis, the etiological agent of anthrax, is one of the most genetically monomorphic bacteria species in the world. Due to the very limited genetic diversity of this species, classification of isolates of this bacterium requires methods with high discriminatory power.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: The cancer stem cell hypothesis states that the capacity of a cancer to grow and propagate is dependent on a small subset of cells. To determine the significances of the cancer stem cell markers CD133, CD44, and CD24 using a comparative analysis with a focus on tumorigenicity.

Methods: Four pancreatic cancer cell lines, Capan-1, Mia-PACA-2, Panc-1, and SNU-410 were analyzed for the expressions of CD133, CD44, and CD24 by flow cytometry.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Bacillus anthracis the causative agent of anthrax, is an important pathogen among the Bacillus cereus group of species because of its physiological characteristics and its importance as a biological warfare agent. Tripartite anthrax toxin proteins and a poly-D-glutamic acid capsule are produced by B. anthracis vegetative cells during mammalian hosts infection and when cultured in conditions that are thought to mimic the host environment.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Anthrax lethal toxin (LeTx; a combination of protective antigen and lethal factor) secreted by the vegetative cells of Bacillus anthracis is cytotoxic for certain macrophage cell lines. The role of LeTx in mediating these effects is complicated largely due to the difficulty in identifying and assigning functions to the affected proteins. To analyze the protein profile of murine macrophages treated with LeTx, we employed two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and MALDI-TOF MS, and interpreted the peptide mass fingerprint data relying on the ProFound database.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Anthrax is an infectious disease caused by toxigenic strains of the Gram-positive bacterium Bacillus anthracis. To identify the mitochondrial proteins that are expressed differently in murine macrophages infected with spores of B. anthracis Sterne, proteomic and MALDI-TOF/MS analyses of uninfected and infected macrophages were conducted.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Bacillus anthracis is a soil pathogen capable of causing anthrax that is closely related to several environmental species, including B. cereus, B. mycoides, and B.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background And Objectives: Gastric neuroendocrine carcinoma (NEC) is an uncommon cancer of the stomach. The classification of NEC and its clinical behavior remains controversial, and prognostic markers and their therapeutic guidelines have not been clearly defined. The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinicopathologic characteristics of these tumors and analyze the expression of E-cadherin and Ki-67 as prognostic markers in gastric NECs.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Anthrax is an infectious disease caused by toxigenic strains of the Gram-positive bacterium Bacillus anthracis, which is mainly present in the environment in the form of highly resistant spores. In order to elucidate a surface enhanced laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight (SELDI-TOF) mass spectroscopy analysis to profile different expressed proteins when B. anthracis spores are infected in human macrophages, we analyzed human macrophage cytosolic fractions for the infection of B.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Bacillus anthracis, a gram-positive, endospore-forming, aerobic rod-shaped bacterium, interacts with macrophages at various stages of the disease. Spore germination and the outgrowth of vegetative bacilli are crucial steps enabling the bacteria to proliferate actively and to synthesize the virulence factors leading to a massive septicemia. In this study, we performed a proteomic analysis and MALDI-TOF/MS were carried out to identify proteins using human macrophages infected with the spores of B.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF