ABSTRACT:An eight-year-old, 4.9 kg, intact male mongrel dog presented with progressive weight loss, anorexia, vomiting, diarrhoea, and open-mouth breathing. A thoracic radiograph showed significant pleural effusion. Upon removal of the pleural effusion, an oval-shaped soft-tissue density mass was identified above the heart base. Two months later, the dog's condition worsened severely, and he was euthanised. A complete necropsy showed all intrathoracic structures were encapsulated by a fibrinous material. A large granuloma was attached between the right cranial lung lobe and the trachea. The cytological evaluation of the pleural effusion showed numerous negative-staining rod structures. Ziehl-Neelsen staining confirmed the presence of acid-fast bacilli. A polymerase chain reaction test confirmed Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection. This work is the first case report of canine pulmonary M. tuberculosis infection in South Korea. To the best of our knowledge, the formation of giant tubercles in canine pulmonary tuberculosis has not been reported recently.Keywords: dog; M. Tuberculosis; pleural effusion; tubercles; tuberculosis List of abbreviations ALP = alkaline phosphatise, ALT = alanine aminotransferase, AST = aspartate transaminase, IL-6 = interleukin-6, PCR = polymerase chain reaction, TB = tuberculosis, TNCC = total nucleated cell count

This study was conducted to investigate the possible relationship between a molecular biological investigation and water quality parameters in monitoring groundwater pollution at the immediate boundary of uncontrolled landfills and their downgradient aquifers, which may consequently facilitate unbiased monitoring for the sites. Two closed landfills, Jicksan and Taejang in Korea, were chosen for this study, where the diversity of the microbial community was characterized and three specific genes, i.e. nirS (nitrite reductase coding gene), cnorB (nitric oxide reductase coding gene) and MCR (methyl coenzyme M reductase coding gene), were quantified. The quantified genes were then compared with conventional water quality parameters. From the analyzed DNA sequences, Proteobacteria phylum was most dominantly observed. A quantitative analysis revealed that the copy numbers (gene abundance) of denitrification enzyme coding genes, i.e. nirS gene and cnorB gene in Jicksan (J) site, are seven and four times, respectively, higher than Taejang (T) site. This simply implied that denitrification was possibly higher in J site than T site. In addition, a methane production enzyme coding gene, i.e. MCR, in a J1 bore immediately bordering the sources in the J site showed the greatest concentration, but it was precipitously decreased in the downgradient direction toward the outer boundary of landfill. A comparative investigation between the copy numbers of three genes, i.e. nirS, cnorB, and MCR, and conventional monitoring parameters, i.e. Cl-, alkalinity, TOC, NH3-N, and NO2-N, showed that they had overall correlation as given by more than 0.99 of the squared correlation coefficient (R2) for almost all of the concerned bores. It was concluded that the comparison between the molecular biological investigation and the conventional groundwater monitoring parameters showed good relationship between them, so that both tools could be more efficiently used for assessing the levels of contamination and prediction of the fate of pollutants, rather than being applied separately.