We have characterized the putative α-glucosidase gene (st2525) selected by total genome analysis from the acidothermophilic crenarchaeon Sulfolobus tokodaii strain 7. The ORF was cloned and expressed as a fusion protein in Escherichia coli, and recombinant ST2525 was purified by Ni-NTA affinity chromatography. Maximum activity was observed at 95°C and pH 4.0, and the enzyme exhibited stability with half-lives of 40.1 min and 7.75 min at extremely high temperatures of 100°C and 105°C, respectively. The enzyme retained at least 85% of its maximal activity in the pH range of 4.0-11.0. ST2525 exclusively hydrolyzed α-1,4-glycosidic linkages of oligosaccharides in an exo-type manner, with highest catalytic efficiency toward maltotriose. The enzyme also displayed transglycosylation activity, converting maltose to isomaltose, panose, maltotriose, isomaltotriose, etc. From these results, ST2525 could be potentially useful for starch hydrolysis as well as novel synthesis of oligosaccharides in industry.
Considering the increasing trends of the consumption of livestock products in Korea, proper hygienic management and policies for ensuring their safety to protect public health and strengthen consumer confidence are demanded. It is particularly important to manage the livestock distribution processes to provide safe meat and meat products. This study was conducted to examine factors related to the hygiene management of livestock products and to check out the condition of hygienic management in meat markets. To accomplish this, 156 meat markets divided into HACCP-certified and non certified and evaluated for five factors, which received the following scores: facility and equipment management (1.00/2.0 points, 50.0%), storage and transport management (1.93/2.0 points, 96.5%), work place management (0.76/2.0 points, 38.0%), personal hygiene management (0.75/2.0 points, 37.5%), and inspection management (0.22/2.0 points, 11.0%). The results revealed that the scores of HACCP-certified meat markets were significantly higher than those of the non certified markets (p<0.05, p<0.01, p<0.001). These findings suggest that meat markets that are not HACCP-certified must improve hygienic management conditions and educate their employees to improve the safety of livestock products during distribution.
This study aimed to measure consumer information competency, which indicates consumers' general ability to search and utilize information. The model of this study was constructed in order to identify how consumer information competency influences the efficiency and the effectiveness of external information search. The model was verified with related prior knowledge as a moderator variable in order to understand holistic consumer information search activity. The result of the study is as follows. First, the concept of consumer information competency was constructed with four sub-abilities: define, search, extract, and synthesis & use. The ability of define was the highest, as opposed to the ability of extract, which was the lowest. Second, consumer information competency was lower for women as well as for low family income. The sub-abilities of search and synthesis & use were lower for aging consumers. Third, consumer information competency has positive effects on information search efficiency and effectiveness. Moreover, the efficiency influences the effectiveness positively. Fourth, prior knowledge moderates the effect of consumer information competency to the efficiency. Only for consumers with high knowledge the efficiency has the effect of mediating between consumer information competency and the effectiveness.
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