• Journal of Life Science
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.465-471
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• 2018

Bee pollen is one of many types of alternative remedies, and it has been used for a long time throughout the world. It has numerous health effects, including antifungal, antibacterial, and antioxidant properties, immune modulation, enhanced cell proliferation, and even anti-carcinogenic effects. This study was designed to elucidate the effects of bee pollen on benign prostatic hyperplasia in rodents. For this experiment, we used nano-sized bee pollen produced through wet-grinding technology, thereby the extraction efficiency of the active ingredients in the bee pollen was significantly enhanced. First, We found that nano-sized bee pollen significantly reduced the size of prostates enlarged by chronic testosterone administration. In addition, nano-sized bee pollen significantly reduced the plasma concentration of the prostate-specific antigen (PSA). Interestingly, nano-sized bee pollen did not reduce the testosterone-induced increase in the plasma concentration of prostaglandin $E_2$ ($PGE_2$). The beneficial effects of nano-sized bee pollen in reducing both the size of the prostate and the plasma concentration of PSA was comparable to that of dutasteride. Finally, nano-sized bee pollen did not cause damage in LNCaP cells which are androgen-sensitive human prostate adenocarcinoma cells. Together, these data indicate that nano-sized bee pollen may be able to be used as a good alternative remedy for the treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.513-521
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• 2020

B-cell-specific Moloney murine leukemia virus integration site 1 (Bmi1) is a polycomb group protein and a core component of polycomb repressive complex 1. Initial research into Bmi1 has focused on its role in tumorigenesis, and it is generally accepted that it is important for the proliferation and survival of cancer cells. However, more recent studies have revealed that Bmi1 is downregulated in brains with neurodegenerative disease and that it regulates the function of mitochondria and reactive oxygen species levels. In this study, we tested the therapeutic potential of Bmi1 in pilocarpine-induced seizures in Bmi1-knockout mice. Bmi1 expression transiently increased in the hippocampal CA1 and CA3 and the dentate gyrus following pilocarpine-induced status epilepticus (SE). In terms of seizure behavior, SE induction was 43.14% and 53.57% for Bmi1^+/+ and Bmi1^+/- mice, respectively. However, there was no significant difference in mortality or hippocampal damage between the two groups. Two months after SE induction, the frequency of epileptic seizures in the Bmi1^+/- mice was 50% lower than in the control group, although the difference was not statistically significant. In addition, mossy fiber outgrowth in the Bmi1^+/- mice was significantly higher than in their wild-type littermates. Taken together, these data indicate that reduced Bmi1 activity increases pilocarpine-induced seizure probability and mossy fiber outgrowth.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.339-349
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• 2011

IBDI (Internal Bit Depth Increase) is able to significantly improve the coding efficiency of high definition video compression by increasing the bit depth (or precision) of internal arithmetic operation. However the scheme also increases required internal memory for storing decoded reference frames and this can be significant for higher definition of video contents. So, the reference frame memory compression method is proposed to reduce such internal memory requirement. The reference memory compression is performed on 4x4 block called the processing unit to compress the decoded image using the correlation of nearby pixel values. This method has successively reduced the reference frame memory while preserving the coding efficiency of IBDI. However, additional information of each processing unit has to be stored also in internal memory, the amount of additional information could be a limitation of the effectiveness of memory compression scheme. To relax this limitation of previous memory compression scheme, we propose a selective merging-based reference frame memory compression algorithm, dramatically reducing the amount of additional information. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm provides much smaller overhead than that of the previous algorithm while keeping the coding efficiency of IBDI.

• The Korean Journal of Pain
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.16-20
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• 2009

Background: Zaprinast is an inhibitor of phosphodiesterase 5, 6 and 9. Phosphodiesterase inhibitors could produce anti-nociceptive effects by promoting the accumulation of cGMP. We hypothesized that intrathecal zaprinast could attenuate the allodynia induced by chronic constriction injury of the sciatic nerve in rat. Methods: Sprague-Dawley rats were prepared with four loose ligations of the left sciatic nerve just proximal to the trifurcation into the sural, peroneal and tibial nerve branches. Tactile allodynia was measured by applying von Frey filaments to the lesioned hindpaw. The thresholds for the withdrawal responses were assessed. Zaprinast ($3-100{\mu}g$) was administered intrathecally by the direct lumbar puncture method to obtain the dose-response curve and the 50% effective dose ($ED_{50}$). Measurements were taken before and 15, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, and 180 min after the intrathecal doses of zaprinast. The side effects were also observed. Results: Intrathecal zaprinast resulted in a dose-dependent antiallodynic effect. The maximal effects occurred within 15-30 min and then they gradually decreased down to the baseline level over time in all the groups. There was a dose dependent increase in the magnitude and duration of the effect. The $ED_{50}$ value was $17.4{\mu}g$ (95% confidence intervals; $14.7-20.5{\mu}g$). No severe motor weakness or sedation was observed in any of the rats. Conclusions: Intrathecally administered zaprinast produced a dose-dependent antiallodynic effect in the chronic constriction injury neuropathic pain model. These findings suggest that spinal phosphodiesterase 5, 6 and 9 may play an important role in the modulation of neuropathic pain.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.30 no.7
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• pp.598-605
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• 2020

Padina gymnospora is a brown algae of the class Phaeophyceae. It has been established that P. gymnospora ameliorates amyloid-β-induced neuropathology and has an anticoagulation effect, but this study was designed to estimate its skin-whitening effect and identify its active component. The ingredients of P. gymnospora were extracted with ethanol and its activity was compared with arbutin. First, the P. gymnospora extract was observed to inhibit tyrosinase activity in a dose-dependent manner, tyrosinase being the rate-limiting enzyme of melanin synthesis. Notably, where 200 μM of arbutin inhibited tyrosinase activity by 58.1%, P. gymnospora extract (0.5%) achieved 76.7%. The P. gymnospora extract also significantly reduced α-melanocyte-stimulating hormone-induced TRP-1 and TRP-2 mRNA expression. In addition, it significantly inhibited melanin synthesis in B16F10 melanoma cells. We identified the 0.66% fucosterol content that inhibited melanin synthesis as comparable to that of arbutin. Additionally, we tested the potential cytotoxicity of P. gymnospora by MTT and LDH release assay and found that the extract significantly reduced LDH release in CCD-986sk cells. These results indicate that P. gymnospora extract could be a potential active ingredient of cosmetics with a skin-whitening effect.

• Journal of the Korean Applied Science and Technology
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.429-437
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is for checking anti-inflammatory effects of Syzygium aromaticum ethanol extract. For this, we investigated biological active evaluation about anti-inflammatory effects by Syzygium aromaticum ethanol extract. Syzygium aromaticum was extracted with 70% ethanol. This extract was tested for the cell viability on RAW 264.7 cell line by MTT assay, nitric oxide inhibitory activity and expression of inflammatory mediators. The extract showed low cytotoxicity as more than 90% cell viability in under 25 ㎍/ml concentration. On LPS-induced RAW 264.7 cell line, nitric oxide inhibition activity result showed that the extract reduced NO productions in a concentration-dependent manner. Expression of inflammatory cytokines as PGE₂, TNF-α and IL-1β decreased in a concentration-dependent manner and iNOS and COX-2 proteins expression were decreased significantly in western blot analysis. We confirmed that the Syzygium aromaticum ethanol extract has excellent anti-inflammatory effect. This results suggested that extract of Syzygium aromaticum may have value as the cosmetic materials.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.42 no.5 s.305
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• pp.137-144
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• 2005

In this paper, the extraction method of the edge histogram directly using wavelet coefficients in the wavelet domain for JPEG2000 images is proposed. MPEG-7 Edge Histogram Descriptor(EHD) extracts edge histogram in the spacial domain. This algorithm has much multiplication and addition for the edge extraction because it needs the decoding processing. However because the proposed algorithm extracts the edge histogram in the wavelet domain, it doesn't need the decoding processing and it decreases multiplication and addition. The Discrete Wavelet Transform(DWT) is a standard transform in JPEG2000. The proposed algorithm uses Le Gall 5/3 filter in JPEG2000 and odd coefficients in LH2 and HL2 sub-band. The edge direction can be decided to use rate of HL2 and LH2 odd coefficients. According to experiments, there is no difference of the efficiency between EHD and the proposed algorithm And the proposed algorithm is much better than EHD for multiplication and addition in the edge extraction of images.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.1-10
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• 2007

Most of natural images have a special property, what is called self-similarity, which is the basis of fractal image coding. Even though an image has local stationarity in several homogeneous regions, it is generally non-stationarysignal, especially in edge region. This is the main reason that poor results are induced in linear techniques. In order to overcome the difficulty we propose a non-linear technique using self-similarity in the image. In our work, an image is classified into stationary and non-stationary region with respect to sample variance. In case of stationary region, do-noising is performed as simply averaging of its neighborhoods. However, if the region is non-stationary region, stationalization is conducted as make a set of center pixels by similarity matching with respect to bMSE(block Mean Square Error). And then do-nosing is performed by Gaussian weighted averaging of center pixels of similar blocks, because the set of center pixels of similar blocks can be regarded as nearly stationary. The true image value is estimated by weighted average of the elements of the set. The experimental results show that our method has better performance and smaller variance than other methods as estimator.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.651-656
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• 2016

Bee pollen is produced by honeybees and is considered one of the most balanced and nourishing nutritional supplements available. Historically, bee pollen has been prescribed for its healing properties and consumed for its high-energy supply. Recent research has provided evidence that bee pollen has diverse biological activities, such as anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial, and even anti-cancer effects. However, the outer membrane of the pollen grain, exine, is highly resistant to most acidic solutions, high pressure, and even digestive enzymes, and the resulting low bioavailability limits its nutritional and clinical applications. This study applied a wet-grinding method to destroy the exine effectively, and it then examined the pollen's enhanced biological activity. First, microscopic observations provided strong evidence that wet grinding destroyed the exine time-dependently. In addition, the content of polyphenols, well-known ingredients of bee pollen and used as internal standards for the quality control of commercial pollen preparations, increased up to 11-fold with wet grinding. Further, the anti-oxidant activity demonstrated on the ABTS anti-oxidant assay, as well as the DPPH radical scavenging assay, was also dramatically increased. Together, the results presented here support a new technology by which bee pollen can be used as a resource for medical, nutritional, and cosmetic applications.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.23 no.12
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• pp.1532-1540
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• 2013

T-box transcription factor 2 (Tbr2) is a member of the T-box family of transcription factors and it plays an important role in brain development, progenitor cell proliferation, and the modulation of differentiation and function in immune cells, such as CD8+ T cells and natural killer cells. This study aims to elucidate the involvement of Tbr2 in the pathophysiological events following pilocarpine-induced status epilepticus in mice. Status epilepticus resulted in prominent neuronal cell death in discrete brain regions, such as CA3, the hilus, and the piriform cortex. Interestingly, when the immunoreactivity of Tbr2 was examined two days after status epilepticus, it was transiently increased in CA3 and in the piriform cortex. Tbr2-positive cells in CA3 and the piriform cortex were double-labeled with CD11b, a marker of microglia and a subset of white blood cells, such as monocytes, CD8+ T cells, and natural killer cells. Moreover, the double-labeled cells with Tbr2 and CD11b showed amoeboid morphology, and this data indicates that Tbr2-expressing cells may be reactive microglia or infiltrating white blood cells. Furthermore, clustered Tbr2-positive cells were observed in the platelet endothelial cell adhesion molecule-1 (PECAM-1)-positive blood vessels near the CA3 area, which suggests that Tbr2-positive cells may be infiltrating the white blood cells. Based on this data, this study is the first to indicate the involvement of Tbr2 in neuropathophysiology in status epilepticus.