• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.395-401
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• 2016

Endochondral bone formation is the process by which mesenchymal cells condense into chondrocytes, which are ultimately responsible for new bone formation. The processes of chondrogenic differentiation and hypertrophy are critical for bone formation and are therefore highly regulated. The present study was designed to investigate the effect of aloe-emodin on chondrogenic differentiation in clonal mouse chondrogenic ATDC5 cells. Aloe-emodin treatment stimulated the accumulation of cartilage nodules in a dose-dependent manner. ATDC5 cells were treated with aloe-emodin and stained with alcian blue. Compared with the control cells, the ATDC5 cells showed more intense alcian blue staining. This finding suggested that aloe-emodin induced the synthesis of matrix proteoglycans and increased the activity of alkaline phosphatase. Aloe-emodin also enhanced the expressions of chondrogenic marker genes such as collagen II, collagen X, BSP and RunX2 in a time-dependent manner. Furthermore, examination of the MAPK signaling pathway showed that aloe-emodin increased the activation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK), but had no effect on p38 and c-jun N-terminal kinase (JNK). Aloe-emodin also enhanced the protein expression of BMP-2 in a time-dependent manner. Thus, these results showed that aloe-emodin exhibited chodromodulating effects via the BMP-2 or ERK signaling pathway. Aloe-emodin may have potential future applications for the treatment of growth disorders.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.41-53
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• 1970

Although the radioisotope liver scan has primarily been of use in the detection of the intra-hepatic space occupying lesions, there has been an increasing awareness of its use in evaluation of liver function. In this study, the degree of hepatomegaly, changes in shape and mottling radiodensity on each lobe and splenic visualization in the liver scans done with colloidal radiogold were numerically expressed as scores under the arbitrary standard in 210 patients with liver cirrhosis. The clinical value of this scoring system was studied with special regards to the correlation between the radiogold hepatic uptake half time and conventional liver function tests. Following were the results; 1) The normal scan appeared in 6.7% of 210 patients with liver cirrhosis. 2) The colloidal radiogold hepatic uptake half time was abnormally and progressively prolonged in parallel to severity of hepatocellular dysfunction. The mean hepatic uptake half time in cirrhosis showing normal scan was $2.76{\pm}0.73$ minutes. 3) The scoring system was well correlated with the serum albumin and globulin levels, A/G ratio and BSP retention. There was some correlative tendency in alkaline phosphatase activity. 4) There was no correlation with the thymol turbidity test, cholesterol levels, transaminase activities and bilirubin levels. 5) The spleen was visualized in 38.6% of total patients with liver cirrhosis. Excluding normal scans in liver cirrhosis, the spleen was visualized in 41.3%. 6) The scoring system appears to confirm the clinical diagnosis and to give a reliable estimate of the degree of hepatocellular dysfunction in patients with liver cirrhosis.

• Journal of the Korea Computer Graphics Society
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.9-23
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• 1999

Visibility preprocessing is a useful method to reduce the complexity of scenes to be processed in real-time, and so enhances the overall rendering performance for interactive visualization of virtual environments. In this paper, we propose an efficient visibility preprocessing method. In the proposed method, we assume that navigatable areas in virtual environments are partitioned into rectangular parallelpiped cells or sub-worlds. To preprocess the visibility of each polygon for a given partitioned cell, we should determine at least the area-to-area visibility. This is inherently a four-dimensional problem. We efficiently express four-dimensional visibility information on two-dimensional spaces and keep it within a ternary tree, which is conceptually similar to a BSP(Binary Space Partitioning) tree, by exploiting the characteristics of conservative visibility. The proposed method is able to efficiently handle more general environments like urban scenes, and remove invisible polygons jointly blocked by multiple occluders. The proposed method requires O(nm) time and O(n+m) space. By selecting a suitable value for m, users can select a suitable level of trade-off between the preprocessing time and the quality of the computational result.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.23
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• pp.10299-10306
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• 2015

The esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is thought to develop through a multi-stage process. Epigenetic gene silencing constitutes an alternative or complementary mechanism to mutational events in tumorigenesis. Posttranscriptional regulation of human leukocyte antigen class I (HLA-I) and antigen processing machinery (APM) proteins expression may be associated with novel epigenetic modifications in cancer development. In the present study, we determined the expression levels of HLA-I antigen and APM components by immunohistochemistry. Then by a bisulfite-sequencing PCR (BSP) approach, we identified target CpG islands methylated at the gene promoter region of APM family genes in a ESCC cell line (ECa109), and further quantitative analysis of CpG site specific methylation of these genes in cases of Kazakh primary ESCCs with corresponding non-cancerous esophageal tissues using the Sequenom MassARRAY platform. Here we showed that the development of ESCCs was accompanied by partial or total loss of protein expression of HLA-B, TAP2, LMP7, tapasin and ERp57. The results demonstrated that although no statistical significance was found of global target CpG fragment methylation level sof HLA-B, TAP2, tapasin and ERp57 genes between ESCC and corresponding non-cancerous esophageal tissues, there was significant differences in the methylation level of several single sites between the two groups. Of thesse only the global methylation level of LMP7 gene target fragments was statistically higher ($0.0517{\pm}0.0357$) in Kazakh esophageal cancer than in neighboring normal tissues ($0.0380{\pm}0.0214$, p<0.05). Our results suggest that multiple CpG sites, but not methylation of every site leads to down regulation or deletion of gene expression. Only some of them result in genetic transcription, and silencing of HLA-B, ERp57, and LMP7 expression through hypermethylation of the promoters or other mechanisms may contribute to mechanisms of tumor escape from immune surveillance in Kazakh esophageal carcinogenesis.

• YAKHAK HOEJI
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• v.49 no.4
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• pp.275-283
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• 2005

The purpose of the present study was to kinetically investigate the carrier-mediated uptake in the hepatic transport of organic anions, and to simulate the 'in vivo counter-transport' phenomena, using kinetic model which was developed in this study. The condition that the mobility of carrier-ligand complex is greater than that of free carrier is not essential for the occurrence of 'counter-transport' phenomenon. To examine the inhibitory effects on the initial uptake of organic anions by the liver, it is necessary to judge whether the true counter-transport mechanism (trans-stimulation) is working or not. Effects of bromophenol blue (BPB) or bromosulfophthalein (BSP) on the plasma disappearance curves of a 1-anilino-8-naphthalene sulfonate (ANS) were then kinetically analyzed based on a flow model, in which the ligand is eliminated only from the peripheral compartment (liver compartment). Moreover, 'in vivo counter-transport' phenomena were simulated based on the perfusion model which incorporated the carrier-mediated transport and the saturable intracellular binding. The 'in vivo counter-transport' phenomena in the hepatic transport of a organic anions were well demonstrated by incorporating the carrier-mediated process. However, the 'in vivo counter-transport' phenomena may be also explained by the enhancement of back diffusion due to the displacement of intracellular binding. In conclusion, one should be more cautious in interpreting data obtained from so-called 'in vivo counter-transport' experiments.

• Journal of Periodontal and Implant Science
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.759-769
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• 2004

Periodontal therapy has dealt primarily with attempts at arresting progression of disease, however, more recent techniques have focused on regenerating the periodontal ligament having the capacity to regenerate the periodontium. The effect of chitosan, a carbohydrate biopolymer extracted from chitin, on periodontal ligament regeneration is of particular interest. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of chitosan on the expression of extracellular matrix proteins in primary rat calvarial cells in Vitro. In the control group, cells was cultured with BGjb media. In the experimental groups, cells were cultured with chitosan in concentration of 0.01, 0.1, 1.0 and 2.0 mg/ml. Then each group was characterized by examining alkaline phosphatase activity at 3 and 7 days, and the ability to produce mineralized nodules of rat calvarial cells at 14 and 21 days. Synthesis of type I collagen (COL-I), osteocalcin (OCN), bone sialoprotein (BSP) was evaluated by RT-PCR at 14 days. The results were as follows: 1. Alkaline phosphatase activity was significantly higher in the concentration of chitosan 0.01mg/ml, 0.1mg/ml and 1.0mg/ml compared to control (p<0.05). 2. The percentage of mineralized bone nodule was more in the concentration of chitosan 0.1mg/ml and 1.0mg/ml than the control. 3. At 14 day culture, the expression of OCN was increased by chitosan in concentration of 1.0 mg/ml and 2.0 mg/ml. These results suggested that chitosan in concentration of 0.1 and 1,0 mg/ml stimulate the extracellular matrix of primary rat calvarial cells and may facilitate the formation of bone.

• Journal of Korean Dental Science
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.9-18
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• 2016

Purpose: Wnt signaling plays an essential role in the dental epithelium and mesenchyme during tooth morphogenesis. Deletion of the Wntless (Wls) gene in odontoblasts appears to reduce canonical Wnt activity, leading to inhibition of odontoblast maturation. However, it remains unclear if autonomous Wnt ligands are necessary for differentiation of dental pulp cells into odontoblast-like cells to induce reparative dentinogenesis, one of well-known feature of pulp repair to form tertiary dentin. Materials and Methods: To analyze the autonomous role of Wls for differentiation of dental pulp cells into odontoblast-like cells, we used primary dental pulp cells from unerupted molars of Wls-floxed allele mouse after infection with adenovirus for Cre recombinase expression to knockout the floxed Wls gene or control GFP expression. The differentiation of dental pulp cells into odontoblast-like cells was analyzed by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. Result: Proliferation rate was significantly decreased in dental pulp cells with Cre expression for Wls knockout. The expression levels of Osterix (Osx), runt-related transcription factor 2 (Runx2), and nuclear factor I-C (Nfic) were all significantly decreased by 0.3-fold, 0.2-fold, and 0.3-fold respectively in dental pulp cells with Wls knockout. In addition, the expression levels of Bsp, Col1a1, Opn, and Alpl were significantly decreased by 0.7-fold, 0.3-fold, 0.8-fold, and 0.6-fold respectively in dental pulp cells with Wls knockout. Conclusion: Wnt ligands produced autonomously are necessary for proper proliferation and odontoblastic differentiation of mouse dental pulp cells toward further tertiary dentinogenesis.

• Architectural research
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.157-166
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• 2014

This research investigates the design process of free-form architecture to understand the design strategy and changing factors during the development phase and the cause for them. It is aimed to foresee the changing factors from the design process and to reduce design changes. It analyzes the design changes of free-form architecture based on projects with finalized documentation or under construction in South Korea. Many free-form shapes of the free-form architectures have to be adjusted to rigid-form in order to satisfy function and be economical to build. The research finds three patterns in design changes. First, from the factors for design changes: function, constructability, design, program add/subtract, efficiency, circulation; Function and Constructability are the higher factors compared with the rest. The two are the design changes suitable for actual usage and cost savings. Second, each project has different predominant factors for design changes as the degree of free-form is different. Contrary to initial expectation, the greater the degrees of free-form of the competition scheme, the higher the rate of Function among the factors for design changes. Constructability is higher when the degree of the free-form is less than others. It means that the lower the degree of the free-form, the more properly planned the space of the building is. Last, Constructability of free-form architecture is considered during the earlier design phase than definite-form, one by which the design changes by comparing 'Before fixed Space Program' (BSP) and 'After fixed Space Program' (ASP) design changes. The research would be helpful as a reference for setting up competition guidelines to reduce trial and error during the design process.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.29-35
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• 2007

Recently, as the demand of mobile multimedia devices increases and T-DMB is started in Korea, the need of research for integration of mobile devices such as cellular phone, navigation, and portable multimedia player becomes higher. In order to integrate mobile devices, it is necessary to support microprocessor with fast speed and various devices with multimedia service. In this paper, we construct Windows CE 5.0 platform whose BSP supports the embedded system board with ARM11 core and various devices and applications. We also implement the DMB device driver which supports busy waiting and interrupt driven I/O techniques, compare their performance, and then suggest the method to efficiently use the resources of embedded system.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.8-15
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• 1997

In this paper, a real-time operating Motion Picture Experts Group-1 (MPEG-1) audio encoder system is implemented using a TMS320C31 Digital Signal Processor (DSP) chip. The basic operation of the MPEG-1 audio encoder algorithm based on audio layer-2 and psychoacoustic model-1 is first verified by C-language. It is then realized using the Texas Instruments (Tl) assembly in order to reduce the overall execution time. Finally, the actual BSP circuit board for the encoder system is designed and implemented. In the system, the side-modules such as the analog-to-digital converter (ADC) control, the input/output (I/O) control, the bit-stream transmission from the DSP board to the PC and so on, are utilized with a field programmable gate array (FPGA) using very high speed hardware description language (VHDL) codes. The complete encoder system is able to process the stereo audio signal in real-time at the sampling frequency 48 kHz, and produces the encoded bit-stream with the bit-rate 192 kbps. The real-time operation capability of the encoder system and the good quality of the decoded sound are also confirmed using various types of actual stereo audio signals.