Journal of Microbiology

Jeong-Ah Seo

3 Articles

Enzyme activity of Aspergillus section Nigri strains isolated from the Korean fermentation starter, nuruk: Eunji Jeong , Jeong-Ah Seo; J. Microbiol. 2022;60(10):998-1006. Published online August 19, 2022; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12275-022-2071-6

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Aspergillus section Nigri is a fungus used industrially because of its ability to produce enzymes such as cellulolytic, amylolytic and proteolytic enzymes. In this study, we obtained twentyeight strains of Aspergillus section Nigri from the traditional Korean fermentation starter, nuruk, which is known as a mixed culture of enzymatic filamentous fungi and yeasts. All strains were identified as Aspergillus section Nigri through combined phylogenetic analysis using partial β-tubulin and calmodulin gene sequences. The cellulase, amylase and protease activities of Korean strains were measured and compared with ten reference strains of Aspergillus niger. Most Korean strains showed higher cellulolytic activity than reference strains, and Aspergillus neoniger KCN5 showed the highest β-glucosidase activity. Two-thirds of the Korean strains showed similar levels of α- and glucoamylase activity as the reference strains. The protease activity of Aspergillus section Nigri strains was the highest at pH 3.0, and A. niger KSJ2 showed the highest acidic protease activity. By comparing ten reference strains and twenty-eight Korean strains, our results suggested useful Aspergillus section Nigri strains from nuruk with high enzyme activity, such as KCN5 and KSJ2, and their potential for industrial applications as enzyme producers.

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Comprehensive analysis of fungal diversity and enzyme activity in nuruk, a Korean fermenting starter, for acquiring useful fungi: Emily Carroll , Tran Ngoc Trinh , Hokyoung Son , Yin-Won Lee , Jeong-Ah Seo; J. Microbiol. 2017;55(5):357-365. Published online April 29, 2017; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12275-017-7114-z

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Abstract PDF

Nuruk is a fermenting starter that is involved in the pro-duction of alcoholic beverages, and has been used in South Korea for a very long time. To analyze the fungal diversity, we collected a total of 59 nuruk samples from several com-panies and persons in 2013 to 2014, and obtained 364 iso-lates. All of the single isolated fungi were identified, both morphologically and molecularly, based on the sequences of ribosomal RNA gene [18S, ITS1-5.8S-ITS2, and 26S (D1/D2 region)]. In 46 nuruk samples out of 59 (78%), Saccharo-mycopsis fibuligera, a dimorphic yeast, was most frequently isolated. Among the filamentous fungi, Aspergillus and Lich-theimia were found in more than 50% of the samples with lower colony forming unit (CFU/g of sample) than those of yeasts. The yeasts S. fibuligera and Wickerhamomyces ano-malus were counted with maximum 1.3 – 1.8 × 108 CFU/g. Among Mucorales fungi, Lichtheimia and Mucor were iso-lated in much higher numbers than Rhizopus and Rhizo-mucor. Overall, the home-made nuruks tend to contain more diverse filamentous fungi than the commercial nuruks. To acquire industrially useful filamentous fungi and yeasts, we analyzed the enzyme activities of α-amylase, glucoamylase and acid protease associated with brewing properties for 131 strains. Aspergillus oryzae and S. fibuligera had high α- and glucoamylase activities and most isolates of Lichtheimia ramosa had high acid protease activity. For further applica-tions, 27 fungal strains were chosen based on isolation fre-quencies from nuruk, and the ability to produce useful en-zyme.

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A diversity study of Saccharomycopsis fibuligera in rice wine starter nuruk, reveals the evolutionary process associated with its interspecies hybrid: Mohamed El-Agamy Farh , Yunjoo Cho , Jae Yun Lim , Jeong-Ah Seo; J. Microbiol. 2017;55(5):337-343. Published online April 29, 2017; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12275-017-7115-y

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Abstract PDF

The amylolytic yeast Saccharomycopsis fibuligera is the pre-dominant yeast in the starter product, nuruk, which is utilized for rice wine production in South Korea. Latest molecular studies explore a recently developed interspecific hybridiza-tion among stains of S. fibuligera with a unique genetic fea-ture. However, the origin of the natural hybridization occur-rence is still unclear. Thus, to respectively distinguish paren-tal and hybrid strains, specific primer sets were applied on 141 yeast strains isolated from different nuruk samples fer-mented in different provinces. Sixty-seven strains were de-fined accordingly as parental species with genome A while 8 strains were defined as hybrid strains. Unexpectedly, another parental species with genome B could not be found among the strain pools yet. Furthermore, it was observed that hybrid strains are phenotypically different from A genome strains; asci containing tetrad ascospores were observed in A genome strains more frequent than in hybrid strains. Nevertheless, hybrid strains were slightly more thermotolerant than A ge-nome strains. Interestingly, all hybrid strains were located only in Jeju province. Based on these sets of data, we specu-lated that the unique climate of Jeju province might play an evolutionary role in the interspecific hybridization between A genome strains, as well as the unculturable allopatric B ge-nome strains.

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