• Journal of Ceramic Processing Research
• /
• v.19 no.6
• /
• pp.492-498
• /
• 2018

In this study, a sea shell was converted into bioceramic phases at three different sintering temperatures ($450^{\circ}C$, $850^{\circ}C$, $1000^{\circ}C$). Among the obtained bioceramic phases, a valuable ${\beta}-TCP$ was produced via mechanochemical conversion method from sea snail Turritella terebra at $1000^{\circ}C$ sintering temperature. For this reason, only the bioceramic sintered at $1000^{\circ}C$ was concentrated on and FT-IR, SEM/EDX, BET, XRD, ICP-OES analyses were carried out for the complete characterization of ${\beta}-TCP$ phase. Biodegradation test in Tris-buffer solution, bioactivity tests in simulated body fluid (SBF) and cell studies were conducted. Bioactivity test results were promising and high rate of cell viability was observed in MTT assay after 24 hours and 7 days incubation. Results demonstrated that the produced ${\beta}-TCP$ bioceramic is qualified for further consideration and experimentation with its features of pore size and ability to support bone tissue growth and cell proliferation. This study suggests an easy, economic method of nanobioceramic production.

• Molecules and Cells
• /
• v.27 no.5
• /
• pp.547-556
• /
• 2009

Parathyroid hormone is the most important endocrine regulator of calcium concentration. Its N-terminal fragment (1-34) has sufficient activity for biological function. Recently, site-directed mutagenesis studies demonstrated that substitutions at several positions within shorter analogues (1-14) can enhance the bioactivity to greater than that of PTH (1-34). However, designing the optimal sequence combination is not simple due to complex combinatorial problems. In this study, support vector machines were introduced to predict the biological activity of modified PTH (1-14) analogues using mono-substituted experimental data and to analyze the key physicochemical properties at each position that correlated with bioactivity. This systematic approach can reduce the time and effort needed to obtain desirable molecules by bench experiments and provide useful information in the design of simpler activating molecules.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
• /
• v.21 no.3
• /
• pp.196-203
• /
• 2013

Recent accumulating studies have reported that hypoxic preconditioning during ex vivo expansion enhanced the self-renewal or differentiation of various stem cells and provide an important strategy for the adequate modulation of oxygen in culture conditions, which might increase the functional bioactivity of these cells for cardiac regeneration. In this study, we proposed a novel priming protocol to increase the functional bioactivity of cardiac progenitor cells (CPCs) for the treatment of cardiac regeneration. Firstly, patient-derived c-$kit^+$ CPCs isolated from the atrium of human hearts by enzymatic digestion and secondly, pivotal target molecules identified their differentiation into specific cell lineages. We observed that hCPCs, in response to hypoxia, strongly activated ERK phosphorylation in ex vivo culture conditioning. Interestingly, pre-treatment with an ERK inhibitor, U0126, significantly enhanced cellular proliferation and tubular formation capacities of CPCs. Furthermore, we observed that hCPCs efficiently maintained the expression of the c-kit, a typical stem cell marker of CPCs, under both hypoxic conditioning and ERK inhibition. We also show that hCPCs, after preconditioning of both hypoxic and ERK inhibition, are capable of differentiating into smooth muscle cells (SMCs) and cardiomyocytes (CMs), but not endothelial cells (ECs), as demonstrated by the strong expression of ${\alpha}$-SMA, Nkx2.5, and cTnT, respectively. From our results, we conclude that the functional bioactivity of patient-derived hCPCs and their ability to differentiate into SMCs and CMs can be efficiently increased under specifically defined culture conditions such as short-term hypoxic preconditioning and ERK inhibition.

• The Journal of Korean Academy of Prosthodontics
• /
• v.57 no.1
• /
• pp.88-94
• /
• 2019

Increasing demands for esthetic dental treatment, zirconia, which has high mechanical and esthetic properties, had been applied more and more in clinics. Therefore, assessment of biocompatibility of zirconia is necessary. In this article, a review of in vivo studies of zirconia compatibility was performed. In vivo studies showed zirconia had great biocompatibility both on soft and hard tissue. Studies with various animals and patients reported high biocompatibility of zirconia. In terms of bone synthesis and bone adhesion, zirconia showed similar biocompatible properties to titanium. On the other hand, zirconia could be used as implant. For using as an implant, various methods of Hydroxyapatite (HA) coating had been suggested. Since HA coating on titanium implant showed some problems such as low bonding strength and degeneration of HA, HA-zirconia composite, HA-coated zirconia, and HA-zirconia functionally graded material (FGM) or intermediate layer of alumina had been proposed. These methods showed higher bonding strength and biocompatibility.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
• /
• 2009.11a
• /
• pp.42.1-42.1
• /
• 2009

In recent years, it has been tried to develop the efficacy and bioactivity of Calcium Phosphate cements(CPC) as injectable bone substitute (IBS) by reinforcing them through varying the amount in its compositions and relative concentrations or adding other additives. In this study, the biocompatibility of are inforced Calcium Phosphate-Calcium Sulfate injectable bone substitute (IBS)containing poly ($\varepsilon$-caprolactone)PCL microspheres was evaluated which consisted of solution chitosan and Na-citrate as liquid phase and tetra calcium phosphate (TTCP), dicalciumphosphate anhydrous (DCPA) powder as the solid phase. The in vitrobiocompatibility of the IBS was done using MTT assay and Cellular adhesion and spreading studies. The in vitro experiments with simulated body fluid (SBF) confirmed the formation of apatite on sample surface after 7 and 14 days of incubation in SBF. SEM images for one cell morphologies showed that the cellular attachment was good. MG-63 cells were found to maintain their phenotype on samples and SEM micrograph confirmed that cellular attachment was well. In vitro cytotoxicity tests by an extract dilution method showed that the IBS was cytocompatible for fibroblast L-929.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.29 no.7
• /
• pp.1053-1060
• /
• 2019

Thermal drying is a common process used in the food industry for the modification of agricultural products. However, while various studies have investigated the alteration in physiochemical properties and chemical composition after drying, research focusing on the relationship between different dehydration conditions and bioactivity is scarce. In the current study, we prepared dried ginger under nine different conditions by varying the processing time and temperature and compared their immunomodulatory effects. Interestingly, depending on the drying condition, there were significant differences in the immunestimulating activity of the dried ginger samples. Gingers processed at $50^{\circ}C$ 1h displayed the strongest activation of macrophages measured by $TNF-{\alpha}$ and IL-6 levels, whereas, freezedried or $70^{\circ}C$- and $90^{\circ}C$-dried ginger showed little effect. Similar results were recapitulated in primary bone marrow-derived macrophages, further confirming that different dehydration conditions can cause significant differences in the immune-stimulating activity of ginger. Induction of ERK, p38, and JNK signaling was found to be the major underlying molecular mechanism responsible for the immunomodulatory effect of ginger. These results highlight the potential to improve the bioactivity of functional foods by selectively controlling processing conditions.

• Journal of Integrative Natural Science
• /
• v.7 no.3
• /
• pp.159-165
• /
• 2014

Pyrazole, hydroxyimino, aldehyde and isoxazole derivatives exhibit a broad spectrum of biological activities such as antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory and antitumor activities. With growing application on their synthesis and bioactivity, chemists and biologists in recent years have considerable attention on the research of these derivatives. In the view of potential importance of these derivatives, we have crystallized few of the derivatives and its report has been published. The present study focuses on docking studies of these derivatives against Phospholipases $A_2$ enzyme. This enzymes has implicated as potential targets for anti-inflammatory drug design. co-crystal structure (PDB ID: 1POE) of $PLA_2$ deposited in Protein Data Bank has been retrieved for docking analysis. Docking studies using Schrodinger's GLIDE reveals that these derivatives shows better binding energy and score in the defined active site. These results may provide a guiding role to design a lead molecule which may reduce inflamation.

• Korean Journal of Plant Resources
• /
• v.32 no.6
• /
• pp.723-729
• /
• 2019

Fagopyrum esculentum (Buckwheat) is a globally used alternative crop that contains several useful substances with various effects; however, many of these substances (rutin, quercetin, etc.) are water insoluble. To extract these substances, alcohols is required, which is inconvenient because these solvents cause diverse problems. Many studies are underway to achieve effective extraction of these substances with water. Among of these studies, microwave assisted water extraction (MAE) has been performed extensively. In this study, we performed the extraction in various solvents and/or microwave from Fagopyrum esculentum. The analysis of the content of useful substances and the bioactivity were performed and shown to increase in MAE. Liquid chromatography-mass was performed in order to identify of the useful water-insoluble substances. Catechin, quercetin, and rutin, which are all insoluble in water, were hardly extracted with water even on heating (4.4 ppb, 3.9 ppb and 60.3 ppb, respectively). However, MAE was found to extract much more of these substances than water (1204 ppb, 110.8 ppb and 2946 ppb, respectively). Although less efficient than alcohols, MAE showed much higher efficiency than simple water extraction. These results indicate that water extraction using microwave technology is effective in cases where it is difficult to extract useful substances using water.

• Journal of Integrative Natural Science
• /
• v.8 no.3
• /
• pp.204-208
• /
• 2015

Pyrazole, ${\beta}$-lactam, salicidine, pyren and oxazole derivatives exhibit a broad spectrum of biological activities such as antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory and antitumor activities. With growing application on their synthesis and bioactivity, chemists and biologists in recent years have considerable attention on the research of these derivatives. In the view of potential importance of these derivatives, we have crystallized few of the derivatives and its report has been published. The present study focuses on docking studies of these derivatives against COX-2 enzyme. Docking studies using Schrodinger's GLIDE reveals that these derivatives shows better binding energy and score in the defined active site. These results may provide a guiding role to design a lead molecule which may reduce inflamation.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Applied Pharmacology
• /
• 1998.11a
• /
• pp.82-87
• /
• 1998

Brine shrimp lethality test has become one of our routine tools in selecting plant materials for further chemical or bioactivity studies in our laboratory. Usually, once a potentially bioactive sample has been identified, it will then be subjected to more elaborate bioassay procedures. Out of more than 200 plant samples tested we found eight samples to be toxic towards brine shrimp larvae.