Jiyoung Jung

Exopolysaccharide from psychrotrophic Arctic glacier soil bacterium Flavobacterium sp. ASB 3-3 and its potential applications

A novel exopolysaccharide (EPS) producing psychrotrophic bacterium Flavobacterium sp. ASB 3-3 was isolated from Arctic glacier soil and identified. The optimum fermentation conditions for EPS production were an initial medium pH of 7.2 and an initial inoculum size of 5% (v/v). The maximum yield of EPS (7.25 ± 0.26 g L−1) was obtained after cultivation at 25 °C for 120 h with glycerol as the sole carbon source. The EPS was purified and its structural characteristics were analyzed by 1H and 13C NMR. The predominant repeating units of this EPS are (α, β) D-glucose and D-galactose and it is different from the structure of EPSs produced by other Arctic and Antarctic bacteria, which have mannose units. In addition, EPS has demonstrated a comparable emulsifying property than SDS and flocculating properties with kaolinite, suggesting their potential applications in various industries. The EPS also significantly improved the tolerance of Flavobacterium sp. and Escherichia coli from freeze–thaw cycles, suggesting that it might be used to survive in polar regions and it can have possible usage as microbial cryoprotectants.

Sensitive change of iso-branched fatty acid (iso-15:0) in Bacillus pumilus PAMC 23174 in response to environmental changes

In this study, the environmental adaptive metabolic processes were investigated using a psychrotrophic polar bacterium Bacillus pumilus PAMC 23174 in response to various temperatures and nutrients, especially in regard to the synthesis of fatty acids. Fatty acid methyl ester analysis was performed using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry and we found that a sensitive changes in iso-branched fatty acid (iso-15:0) synthesis occurred when adjusting the nutritional ratio of branched chain fatty acids (anteiso/iso) with different temperatures, resulting in a change in the balance of anteiso- and iso-form fatty acids. We also observed that this Arctic bacterium preferred amino acid leucine for the synthesis of fatty acids. The increased and decreased synthesis of iso-form fatty acids in response to different temperatures and leucine preference, changes the fatty acid ratio in bacteria, which further affects the membrane fluidity and it is also directly correlated with survival of bacteria in an extreme environment. Hence, this study suggests that B. pumilus PAMC 23174 is a potential model organism for the analysis of the unique ecological adaptations of polar bacteria in changing and the extreme environments.

Dually crosslinkable SiO2@polysiloxane core–shell nanoparticles for flexible gate dielectric insulators

A hybrid gate dielectric material for flexible OTFT is developed by using core–shell nanoparticles (SiO2@PSRXL) where the core and the shell consist of silica nanoparticles and polysiloxane resin, respectively. Since polysiloxane resin contains both thermal- and photo-crosslinkable functional groups, densely-crosslinked thin gate dielectric films can be easily prepared on various substrates by conventional solution casting followed by dual crosslinking. SiO2@PSRXL films exhibit high thermal stability (weight loss at 300 °C is smaller than 3 wt%). The dielectric films made of SiO2@PSRXL show an exceptionally low leakage current and no breakdown voltage up to 4.3 MV cm−1, which are comparable to those of silica dielectrics prepared by CVD. OTFT devices based on dibenzothiopheno[6,5-b:6′,5′-f]thieno[3,2-b]thiophene (DTBTT) as a semiconductor and SiO2@PSRXL as a gate dielectric exhibit good hole mobility (2.5 cm2 V−1 s−1) and Ion/Ioff ratio (106).