• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.317-327
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• 1987

As a series of studies on the suitability as a second intermediate host of Clonorchis sinensis, artificial infection experiments were applied to Tilapia mossambica. And then, in order to elucidate the defence mechanism of the fish to Clonorchis, clonorchicidal substance in the epidermal mucus of the fish was isolated by silica gel column and thin layer chromatography and analyzed for its chemical structure by UV, IR and NMR-spectroscopy. The results obtained are summarized as follows: 1. The cercariae which attempted to contact with the fish in the water were observed under stereomicroscope. After contact, the cercariae began to separate their tail from the body after several minutes and then the number increased to $80\%$ more than 10 minutes after the encounter. But very few cercariae could actually invade the epidermis of the fish. 2. The fish were reared with Parafossarulus manchouricus which were shedding numerous cercariae of Clonorchis in the aquarium for 24 hours. Only a few cercariae could invade the epidermis but most of the invaded cercariae died out before forming their cysts. Very few number of the remaining encysted cercariae were also found to be in a state of suspended animation within 42 hours. 3. In the cases of the control fish, Pseudorasbora parva, numerous cercariae of Clonorchis were found to invade the fish through the epidermis under stereomicroscope. Then many metacercariae of Clonorchis were also found in the fish while they were kept in the aquarium. 4. A sample of the epidermal mucus of Tilapia mossambica was extracted with ethly ether 6 times repeatedly. In silica gel column chromatography, using petroleum ether: chloroform/30:70(v/v) as a first solvent and MeOH as a second solvent, the extract was fractionated into the yellow and brownish red solutions in the first solvent and the clonorchicidal brownish yellow solution in the second sovent. 5. The clonorchicidal brownish yellow solution was added to petroleum ether, and the mixture was stored for 5 days at $5^{\circ}C$ and was, then, separated into supernatant fraction and precipitate. Ten mg/ml of the supernatant fraction killed, in vitro, the excysted metacercariae in 45 minutes but the precipitate in 600 minutes. 6. In silica gel column chromatography, using acetone: benzene/10:90(v/v) as a solvent, the more clonorchicidal supernatant fraction was fractionated into the first fraction with Rf. 0.2966 and the second fraction with Rf. 0.072. In vitro, 10mg/ml of the first fraction killed the excysted metacercariae in 28 minutes, the second fraction in 80 minutes and the first fraction was, therefore, determined to be a final clonorchicidal substance. 7. By this purification procedures, the most clonorchicidal substance from the epidermal mucus of Tilapia mossambica was purified 71-folds with $0.2075\%$ yield. Infra red, nuclear magnetic resonance and ultraviolet spectrometric analysis of the purified substance revealed that the substance is linoleic acid. According to the results of the present studies it seemed that this species can not serve as a proper intermediate host of Clonorchis sinensis, and that defence mechanism to the fluke seems to be correlated with linoleic acid in the epidermal mucus of this species.

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.319-326
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• 1996

The objective of this study was to investigate correlation between the morphology by microscopic assessments of surplus blastocysts produced in human IVF program and their cell number obtained by differential labelling method. For these experiments, 76 surplus human blastocysts were obtained from 36 patients on day 5 after IVF, the embryos were classified to early (ErB), early expanding (EEB), middle expanding (MEB), expanded blastocyst (EdB) according to their blastocoel expansion and zona thickness. When the ovum size and zona thickness of the classified blastocysts were measured using micrometer, although the embryos were produced in the same culture condition, there were significant variances in ovum size ($148.8 217.6{\mu}m$) and zona thickness ($1.2-14.4{\mu}m$). Total blastomere cell number counted after hoechst staining was increased by two to three fold during the transition period from ErB ($39.1{\pm}3.6$) to EdB ($(89.6{\pm}3.3)$) stage on day 5 after IVF. ICM ($11.9{\pm}1.8-22.2{\pm}4.3$) and TE ($24.5{\pm}3.6-70.0{\pm}7.7$) cell numbers using differential labelling were also showed the increased pattern according to the developmental level. Especially, EdB which showed poor ICM morphologically also indicated the low ICM cell number after differential labelling. This demonstrated that there is good correlation between the morphological assessment and the cell number. The count of ICM and TE nuclei using differential labelling can be used as an important criterion, if it is accompanied with morphological assessments, in selecting the better embryos for improving the pregnancy rates in human blastocyst transfer program.