Chun Shiong Chong

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia | UTM · Department of Biological Sciences

The production of second-generation biofuel requires a huge amount of freshwater. It is estimated that at least three gal of freshwater is used to produce one gal of bio-fuel. The replacement of freshwater with seawater serves as a potential alternative in biofuel generation. Therefore, salt-tolerant enzymes play an important role in sac-charificat...

Hahella is a genus that has not been well-studied, with only two identified species. The potential of this genus to produce cellulases is yet to be fully explored. The present study isolated Hahella sp. CR1 from mangrove soil in Tanjung Piai National Park, Malaysia, and performed whole genome sequencing (WGS) using NovaSeq 6000. The final assembled...

Staphylococcus aureus is a bacterium that causes various diseases in humans. Cold plasma is found to be an alternative to eliminate S. aureus. Most studies of cold plasma on S. aureus mainly focus on the physiochemical changes of the cells. So far, biological responses of S. aureus to cold plasma treatment under different treatment durations have n...

Zhouia amylolytica CL16 was isolated from the mangrove soil of Tanjung Piai, Malaysia. The present work reports the draft genome sequence of this bacterium. The genome consists of 113 glycoside hydrolases, 40 glycosyltransferases, 4 polysaccharide lyases, 23 carbohydrate esterases, 5 auxiliary activities, and 27 carbohydrate-binding modules, which...

C old plasma is a disinfection technique widely used in food, agricultural, and medical industries. This work used cold plasma to sterilize Pseudomonas aeruginosa and cell survivability was determined. RNA sequencing was used to determine the bacterial responses at 1 minute (T1), 3 minutes (T3), and 5 minutes (T5) of cold plasma treatments. The res...

The halophilic genus Joostella is one of the least-studied genera in the family of Flavobacteriaceae. So far, only two species were taxonomically identified with limited genomic analysis in the aspect of application has been reported. Joostella atrarenae M1-2T was previously isolated from a seashore sample and it is the second discovered species of...

Generally, most of the setups of plasma jet adopted rare gases (e.g., helium and argon) as the working gas. The drawback of using rare gases is that it cannot be continuously used as the gas tank volume is limited, and the cost of using rare gases to yield plasma jet is also higher. Thus, a plasma jet using solely air as the working gas could be a...

Cold plasma is a disinfection technique widely used in food, agricultural, and medical industries. This work used cold plasma to sterilize Pseudomonas aeruginosa and cell survivability was determined. RNA sequencing was used to determine the bacterial responses at 1 minute (T1), 3 minutes (T3), and 5 minutes (T5) of cold plasma treatments. The resu...

Robertkochia solimangrovi is a proposed marine bacterium isolated from mangrove soil. So far, the study of this bacterium is limited to taxonomy only. In this report, we performed a genomic analysis of R. solimangrovi that revealed its lignocellulose degrading ability. Genome mining of R. solimangrovi revealed a total of 87 lignocellulose degrading...

Luteibacter is a bacterial genus affiliated to Rhodanobacteraceae family with five species reported up to date. Currently, limited information regarding this genus was revealed, especially on its genomic perspective and its potential application. Here, we present the whole genome sequence of Luteibacter sp. CQ10, which the strain was isolated from...

Halophilic microorganisms have received considerable attention from many researchers as a potential source to discover novel enzymatic activities. Mangrove forests with a unique carbon sink ecosystem are an example of a habitat where halophilic microorganisms can be found. In this study, a hemicellulose-degrading bacterial strain CR19 was successfu...

Increasing global demand for animal protein combined with an urgent need to advance towards global sustainability, as enshrined within the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), has spurred the development of insects as a protein source in animal and fish feed. The acceptance and feasibility of these advances are nevertheless poorly understood. This...

The biovanillin production was influenced by varying the culture pH via single control strategy conducted by separate experiments during the fermentation processes. Highest biovanillin production (124 mg/L) with 32% molar yield at culture pH 6.0 from the one-stage control method was observed. Specific growth rates (μ) of the Phanerochaete chrysospo...

Protease-producing bacteria is a group of bacteria with potential for biotechnological applications, particularly in the detergent industry. In this study, an extracellular protease-producing bacterium strain CR4 was isolated from mangrove soil at Tanjung Piai National Park in Johor, Malaysia. The strain CR4 was identified as a member of the genus...

Bioactive peptides with potential health benefits and metabolic functionality have been identified from plant-based food. The aim of this perspective is to report the recent progress in the research of plant-derived bioactive peptides using the combination of -omics technologies and bioinformatics tools. Studies examining bioactive peptides with id...

Malaysia's renewable energy policies do not cover production from waste, including the generation of biogas from palm oil mill effluent. This paper combines life cycle cost-benefit analysis (LCCBA) and the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) to provide new insights into costs and benefits of technologies over the life cycles, and on the basis of thi...

Paper de-inking is one of the critical processes in pulp and paper industry as it is ecofriendly and energy saving. This process requires microbial enzymes such as xylanases with ability to withstand harsh bioprocess conditions. Microbulbifer is a halophilic genus with ability to produce hydrolytic enzymes that could be applied in the biotechnologi...

The COVID–19 pandemic has significantly affected every aspect of human life. To deal with the spreading of virus, every country started to implement the mandatory use of face mask as a preventive measure. Thus, the production of face mask has increased dramatically as compared to the era before COVID–19 pandemic. The extensive usage of face mask th...

The genus Glutamicibacter is one of the genera reclassified from the genus Arthrobacter in year 2016. Although the members of genus Glutamicibacter were identified from various locations previously, little is known about their potential applications in the industries. In this study, a bacterial strain CP92 was isolated from oil palm compost and fou...

The wide use of whole-genome sequencing approach in the modern genomic era has opened a great opportunity to reveal the prospective applications of halophilic bacteria. Robertkochia marina CC-AMO-30DT is one of the halophilic bacteria that was previously taxonomically identified without any inspection on its biotechnological potential from a genomi...

Phosphate solubilizing bacteria have been found to be important to promote plant growth. In this study, a phosphate solubilizing bacterium strain CP25 was isolated from oil palm compost and found to have ability to secrete extracellular phosphatases. After 16S rRNA gene sequencing, the strain CP25 was identified to be a member of genus Devosia, wit...

One-step bioconversion of biovanillin using Phanerochaete chrysosporium ATCC 24725 with lemongrass leaves hydrolysates (LLH) was performed in batch culture. Initially, optimization of the lignocellulosic pretreatment practices using liquid hot-water with sodium bisulfite (0.5% w/v) towards the release of the ferulic acids was exhaustively investiga...

Water contamination problems caused by various contaminants (i.e. anionic and cationic compounds, and pathogenic bacteria) necessitate the advanced material development for simultaneous adsorption and antibacterial actions. In this study, kaolinite (Kao) was modified with surfactant hexadecyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (HDTMA-Br) (0.1, 1.0 and 4.0 m...

Lignocellulosic components were grossly considered recalcitrant. Thus, several researchers have engaged in determining certain pre-treatment techniques that would have the tendency of attacking, degrading, and depolymerizing this complex structure, followed by subsequent use of microorganisms for bioproducts production. Therefore, this review prese...

To date, the genus Parvularcula consists of 6 species and no potential application of this genus was reported. Current study presents the genome sequence of Parvularcula flava strain NH6-79 T and its cellulolytic enzyme analysis. The assembled draft genome of strain NH6-79 T consists of 9 contigs and 7 scaffolds with 3.68 Mbp in size and GC content...

The majority of the members in order Rhodothermales are underexplored prokaryotic extremophiles. Roseithermus, a new genus within Rhodothermales, was first described in 2019. Roseithermus sacchariphilus is the only species in this genus. The current report aims to evaluate the transcriptomic responses of R. sacchariphilus strain RA when cultivated...

Application of biotechnological tools as an imminent basis for biovanillin production was established promising using microbes via utilization of readily available agro-based supplies as precursors, and the process was universally accepted as natural. However, the production process was confronted with certain bottlenecks including undesired produc...

Mangrovimonas sp. strain CR14 is a halophilic bacterium affiliated with family Flavobacteriaceae which was successfully isolated from mangrove soil samples obtained from Tanjung Piai National Park, Johor. The whole genome of strain CR14 was sequenced on an Illumina HiSeq 2500 platform (2 × 150 bp paired end). Herein, we report the genome sequence o...

In this study, a bacterial strain CP22 with ability to produce cellulase, xylanase and mannanase was isolated from the oil palm compost. Based on the 16S rRNA gene analysis, the strain was affiliated to genus Micromonospora. To further investigate genes that are related to cellulose and hemicellulose degradation, the genome of strain CP22 was seque...

To date, there is sparse information for the genus Robertkochia with Robertkochia marina CC-AMO-30DT as the only described member. We report here a new species isolated from mangrove soil collected at Malaysia Tanjung Piai National Park and perform polyphasic characterization to determine its taxonomic position. Strain CL23T is a Gram-negative, yel...

The genus Meridianimaribacter is one of the least-studied genera within Cytophaga-Flavobacteria. To date, no genomic analysis of Meridianimaribacter has been reported. In this study, Meridianimaribacter sp. strain CL38, a lignocellulose degrading halophile was isolated from mangrove soil. The genome of strain CL38 was sequenced and analyzed. The as...

This study conducted a life cycle assessment of palm oil mill effluent (POME) based energy generation using the CML 2001 method and Gabi 8 software, focusing on two POME treatment technologies: the covered lagoon bio-digester (CLB) and the continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR). The analysis determined the respective environmental impacts of the te...

Mangrove forests inhabit over 15,200,000 ha of coastal area that cover only less than 1% of world’s coastal zone. These unique forests are mostly found in South and South East Asia. In general, mangrove forests are unique ecosystem that are highly resisting to environmental changes. This area is the habitat for unique terrestrial and marine flora,...

Thousands of prokaryotic genera have been published, but methodological bias in the study of prokaryotes is noted. Prokaryotes that are relatively easy to isolate have been well-studied from multiple aspects. Massive quantities of experimental findings and knowledge generated from the well-known prokaryotic strains are inundating scientific publica...

Empty fruit bunch (EFB) and palm oil mill effluent (POME) are the major wastes generated by the oil palm industry in Malaysia. The practice of EFB and POME digester sludge co-composting has shown positive results, both in mitigating otherwise environmentally damaging waste streams and producing a useful product (compost) from these streams. In this...

This work reports the inclusion of crocin (an active agent of saffron) into bacterial nanocellulose (BNC) membrane for transdermal drug delivery. The BNC showed good uptake of the crocin based on the swelling studies and vibrational peaks of the FTIR spectra. Surface morphology of the crocin loaded BNC showed that the fibrous nano feature was still...

Xylanases (EC 3.2.1.8) are essential enzymes due to their applications in various industries such as textile, animal feed, paper and pulp, and biofuel industries. Halo-thermophilic Rhodothermaceae bacterium RA was previously isolated from a hot spring in Malaysia. Genomic analysis revealed that this bacterium is likely to be a new genus of the fami...

A halo-thermophilic bacterium, Roseithermus sacchariphilus strain RA (previously known as Rhodothermaceae bacterium RA), was isolated from a hot spring in Langkawi, Malaysia. A complete genome analysis showed that the bacterium harbors 57 glycoside hydrolases (GHs), including a multi-domain xylanase (XynRA2). The full-length XynRA2 of 813 amino aci...

Palm oil is the most commonly used vegetable oil and is found in consumer products ranging from soap and chocolate to cooking oil. Approximately 90 % of global palm oil is supplied by Malaysia and Indonesia. In 2018, Malaysia and Indonesia set a target to increase their palm oil production to approximately 37.8 Mt and 20.5 Mt. It is anticipated tha...

Palm oil is the most commonly used vegetable oil and is found in consumer products ranging from soap and chocolate to cooking oil. Approximately 90 % of global palm oil is supplied by Malaysia and Indonesia. In 2018, Malaysia and Indonesia set a target to increase their palm oil production to approximately 37.8 Mt and 20.5 Mt. It is anticipated tha...

Global warming is one of today's most critical environmental issues, caused largely by emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide from burning of fossil fuels. Emissions of carbon dioxide vary throughout countries in Asia. It is increasingly recognised that countries must act to promote the greater use of renewable energy resources as part...

Rhodothermaceae bacterium RA is a halo-thermophile isolated from a saline hot spring. Previously, the genome of this bacterium was sequenced using a HiSeq 2500 platform culminating in 91 contigs. In this report, we report on the resequencing of its complete genome using a PacBio RSII platform. The genome has a GC content of 68.3%, is 4,653,222 bp i...

The ability of thermophilic microorganisms and their enzymes to decompose biomass have attracted attention due to their quick reaction time, thermostability, and decreased risk of contamination. Exploitation of efficient thermostable glycoside hydrolases (GHs) could accelerate the industrialization of biofuels and biochemicals. However, the full sp...

A halophilic bacterium, Virgibacillus sp. strain CD6, was isolated from salted fish and its extracellular protease was characterized. Protease production was found to be highest when yeast extract was used as nitrogen source for growth. The protease exhibited stability at wide range of salt concentration (0–12.5%, w/v), temperatures (20–60 °C), and...

To date, the genus Roseivirga consists of six species with one subspecies and is one of the least-studied genera among the family Flammeovirgaceae. In order to further explore this genus, the genome sequences of five Roseivirga spp. were compared and described in this study. The Roseivirga genomes have similar sizes in the range of 4.08-4.47Mb with...

Recently, attention has been given to nanocellulose produced by bacteria due to its unique properties and environmentally friendly nature when compared with plant cellulose. Bacterial nanocellulose (BNC) producing isolate was successfully isolated from rotten fruits via dilution and spread plates method. Based on the biochemical characterisation an...

Vitellibacter aquimaris D-24T (=KCTC 42708T = DSM 101732T), a halophilic marine bacterium, was isolated from seawater collected from Desaru beach, Malaysia. Here, we present the draft genome sequence of D-24T with a genome size of approximately 3.1 Mbp and G + C content of 39.93%. The genome of D-24T contains genes involved in reducing a potent gre...

The genus Roseivirga currently includes five species: Roseivirga ehrenbergii, R. echinicomitans, R. spongicola, R. marina and R. maritima. Marinicola seohaensis SW-152T was renamed as Roseivirga seohaensis SW-152T and then reclassified again as a later heterotypic synonym of R. ehrenbergii KMM 6017T. In this study, based on average nucleotide ident...

Anoxybacillus sp. SK 3-4 is a Gram-positive, rod-shaped bacterium and a member of family Bacillaceae. We had previously reported that the strain is an aluminum resistant thermophilic bacterium. This is the first report to provide a detailed analysis of the global transcriptional response of Anoxybacillus when the cells were exposed to 600 mg L(-1)...

Three marine bacteria, designated as strain CH1, CH2 and CH4 were isolated from seagrass collected in Desaru, Johor. All strains (CH1, CH2 and CH4) were identified as Shewanella sp., Cobetia sp. and Bacillus sp. respectively based on 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis. All identified strains were catalase-positive, cannot utilized citrate, tryptophan...

A Gram negative, aerobic, yellow-orange pigmented, rod-shaped bacterium designated as D-24T was isolated from seawater from sandy shoreline in Johor, Malaysia. The 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis revealed that the strain D-24T is affiliated with the genus Vitellibacter. It shared more than 96 % of sequence similarity with the types of some of the v...

Significant amounts of lignocellulosic waste biomass are produced annually. Lignocellulose degrading enzymes play a crucial role in converting the woody materials into sugars and biofuels. The aims of this work were to isolate and characterise the microorganisms from Bulbitermes sp. termite gut with the ability to produce lignocellulolytic enzymes...

The aim of this research was to determine the antimicrobial activity of kaolinite modified with antimicrobial compounds against Gram positive and Gram negative bacteria. Copper kaolinite (Cu-kaolinite) was prepared by loading raw kaolinite with copper nitrate trihydrate (CuNO3) while surfactant modified Cu-kaolinite (SM-Cu-kaolinite) was prepared b...

Marine environment remained as largely unexplored source for researchers to discover marine microorganisms with novel properties. This study aims to isolate marine bacteria from the seashore of Desaru, Malaysia. Totally, six bacterial strains were successfully obtained and were identified by complete 16S rRNA sequencing. The characterizations of ba...

Climate change is a natural phenomenon where significant change in weather patterns in a certain region of the world is observed. Interestingly, the earth's climate has changed throughout its history mostly as a result of minor variations in the earth's orbit that change the amount of solar energy it received. Only recently, however, climate change...

Plants normally change their physiological and biochemical properties when exposed to heavy metal stress. We investigated the response of Orthosiphon stamineus towards different concentrations of Pb (0, 2, 5, 8 mg/L) and Cu (1, 2, 4, 5 mg/L). Heavy metals left in soil, plant physical characteristics, and the level of antioxidants in O. stamineus we...

Plants need an appropriate amount of copper to sustain their normal growth. However, excess of copper may interrupt plant development and cause stress. In this study, the responses of Orthosiphon stamineus callus culture under various copper concentrations were investigated. Callus cells at 24-days old were treated with 100, 150, 200 and 250 μM of...

Objective: The objective of this research is to clone and express a new fibrinolytic enzyme encoding serine protease gene in Escherichia coli thus, characterize such purified recombinant. Methods: The recombinant clone was successfully expressed in Lemo21 system and purified using immobilized nickel cation affinity chromatography on a His•bind resi...

The processing of palm oil generates highly polluting effluent called palm oil mill effluent (POME). Due to the inefficiency of conventional treatment methods to meet the environmental standard discharge limit, alternative treatment methods could play a positive role in treating POME. In this study, biofilm-coated macrocomposites were used to treat...

The Anoxybacillus sp. SK 3–4, previously isolated from a hot spring, was screened for its heavy metals resistance (Al3+, Mn2+, Cu2+, Co2+, Zn2+, and Ni2+) and the strain was found to be most resistant to aluminum. Significant growth of the strain was observed when it was grown in medium containing aluminum (200 mg L−1–800 mg L−1) with relative grow...

Repeated use of the explosive compound hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine (RDX) on military land has resulted in significant soil and groundwater pollution. Degradation rates of RDX in the environment are slow and accumulated RDX, which the US Environmental Protection Agency has determined is a possible human carcinogen, is now threatening dri...

The aim of this study was to isolate and characterize psychrotrophic bacteria resistant to antibiotic and metals from cold samples of refrigerated spoiled food and ice. Two isolates named H and F were successfully isolated from samples incubated at 10°C and 4°C, respectively. Both isolates were able to grow at 4°C, 10°C, 20°C and 30°C and exhibited...

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Sequences were screened for chimeras by the submitter using seq scanner 2.0. ##Assembly-Data-START## Sequencing Technology :: Sanger dideoxy sequencing ##Assembly-Data-END##

Species of Anoxybacillus are widespread in geothermal springs, manure, and milk-processing plants. The genus is composed of 22 species and two subspecies, but the relationship between its lifestyle and genome is little understood. In this study, two high-quality draft genomes were generated from Anoxybacillus spp. SK3-4 and DT3-1, isolated from Mal...

##Assembly-Data-START## Sequencing Technology :: Sanger dideoxy sequencing ##Assembly-Data-END##

##Assembly-Data-START## Sequencing Technology :: Sanger dideoxy sequencing ##Assembly-Data-END##

Anoxybacillus sp. DT3-1 is a newly isolated bacterium with amylolytic activity. The gene that encodes the α-amylase was recently cloned and expressed in E. coli system. However, the expression level was far too low to be used for further analysis. The main objective of this study is to enhance the recombinant α-amylase (ADTA) expression level extra...

The Bacillaceae family members are a good source of bacteria for bioprocessing and biotransformation involving whole cells or enzymes. In contrast to Bacillus and Geobacillus, Anoxybacillus is a relatively new genus that was proposed in the year 2000. Because these bacteria are alkali-tolerant thermophiles, they are suitable for many industrial app...