• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.20 no.8
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• pp.627-633
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• 2019

Rapid and accurate identification of marine microalgae causing harmful algal blooms (HABs) is a crucial tool for predicting and managing HABs. We previously developed a nuclease protection assay sandwich hybridization (NPA-SH) method for the in situ detection of blooming microalgae Cochlodinium polykrikoides. In this study, we improved the applicability of the NPA-SH method for the detection of C. polykrikoides by simplifying the reaction step. For this purpose, invertase (INV) was conjugated to the signal probe instead of using fluorescence, and sucrose was used as a reactant to induce a color reaction. The INV-signal probe conjugation was confirmed by SDS-PAGE and epifluoromicroscopy. The treatment time and appropriate amounts of the probe and sucrose that optimized the reaction were determined. As a result, the developed INV-SH reduced the treatment time in the field compared with NPA-SH, and also enabled the use of a relatively small volume and low-priced personal glucose meter, as well as an absorbance meter. INV-SH is the first C. polykrikoides species identification technology to which INV has been applied and could be an improved field technique.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.15 no.11
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• pp.6774-6781
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• 2014

This study examined the efficacy and the mechanism of action of biological response modifiers, ginsenosides Rb1 and Rg1 isolated from Panax ginseng C.A. Meyer on human keratinocytes HaCaT cell lines. A non-significant cytotoxic response was obtained in the HaCaT cell lines on treatment with various concentrations of ginsenosides Rb1 and Rg1 for different time durations. Furthermore, the global changes in the mRNA profile of HaCaT cells were investigated using DNA microarrays after stimulation with the ginsenosides Rb1 and Rg1. Ginsenosides Rb1 and Rg1 strongly increased FGF2 in HaCaT cells, and were found to be a candidate gene for antioxidant activity and elasticity. Other key candidate genes for antioxidant activity, such as FANCD2, LEPR, and FAS, also show enhanced regulation in HaCaT cells treated with ginsenoside Rb1. This study will be useful for understanding the regulatory genes involved in skin elasticity and signal transduction pathway stimulated by the ginsenoside Rb1. This paper currently focuses on the key factors regulating the interaction of anti-aging principles and skin elasticity.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.21 no.9
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• pp.1288-1294
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• 2011

Resveratrol, a kind of phytochemical, is presented in grape skins. Resveratorl exerts antiproliferative, anti-cancer and pro-apoptotic activities in cancer cells. Mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) is a critical regulator of cellular growth and proliferation, and it is known to be a strategic target for anti-cancer therapeutic uses. mTOR is a major downstream of the PI3K/Akt pathway, which is activated in various cancer cells. It also plays an important role in the survival, proliferation and angiogenesis of cells. Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) is an important protein that mediates inflammatory processes. It plays an important role in various tumors by affecting cell proliferation, mitosis, apoptosis and angiogenesis. In this study, we have investigated the effects of resveratrol on apoptosis through mTOR and COX-2 expression in MCF-7 breast cancer cells. The treatment of resveratrol with different concentrations inhibited proliferation of MCF-7. The data showed that resveratrol induced apoptotic cell death of cancer cells and decreased mTOR and COX-2 expression. These results suggest that resveratrol induces apoptosis of MCF-7 breast cancer cells by inhibiting mTOR and COX-2 expression.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.129-134
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• 2019

In a previous study, we isolated 11 different kinds of compounds from ethyl acetate fractions of lees (jubak) which is a by-product of Korean traditional wine production. These compounds were identified as caffeic acid, coumaric acid, D-mannitol, ferulic acid, hesperetin, hesperidin, naringenin, naringin, sinapic acid, syringic acid, and vanilic acid. To evaluate their anti-inflammatory activities in an in vitro model, nitric oxide (NO) production was measured in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated RAW 264.7 cells after the treatment of these cells with each compound. Among the various chemicals, hesperetin and naringenin showed the highest inhibition of NO production in the LPS-activated RAW 264.7 cells. Hesperetin was chosen for further study because of its strong anti-inflammatory activity and because the mechanisms underlying its anti-inflammatory properties still remain unclear. Our results showed that hesperetin dramatically inhibited NO production in a dose-dependent manner as compared with in an LPS-only treated group, without affecting cell viability. In addition, hesperetin reduced the protein expression of the pro-inflammatory gene inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) in a dose-dependent manner, whereas it did not affect cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) expression. Furthermore, hesperetin inhibited phosphorylation of p38 mitogen- activated protein kinase (MAPK) and extracellular signal regulated kinase (ERK) 1/2, whereas it did not affect phosphorylation of c-jun N- terminal kinase (JNK). The results indicated that hesperetin regulated the LPS-induced inflammatory response by suppressing p38 MAPK and ERK1/2 signaling. Overall, our results may help to understand the mechanisms underlying the anti-inflammatory activity mediated by hesperetin.

• Analytical Science and Technology
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.205-211
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• 2022

Deuterium (D) is an isotope with one more neutron number than hydrogen (H). Heavy elements rarely change their chemical properties with little effect even if the number of neutrons increases, but low-mass elements change their vibration energy, diffusion rate, and reaction rate because the effect cannot be ignored, which is called an isotope effect. Recently, in the semiconductor and display industries, there is a trend to replace hydrogen gas (H₂) with deuterium gas (D₂) in order to improve process stability and product quality by using the isotope effect. In addition, as the demand for D₂ in industries increases, domestic gas producers are making efforts to produce and supply D₂ on their own. In the case of high purity D₂, most of them are produced by electrolysis of heavy water (D₂O), and among D₂, hydrogen deuteride (HD) molecules are present as isotope impurities. Therefore, in order to maximize the isotope effect of hydrogen in the electronic industry, HD, which is an isotope impurity of D₂ used in the process, should be small amount. To this end, purity analysis of D₂ for industrial processing is essential. In this study, HD quantitative analysis of D₂ for high purity D₂ purity analysis was established and hydrogen isotope RM (Reference material) was developed. Since hydrogen isotopes are difficult to analyze with general gas analysis instrument, they were analyzed using a high-precision mass spectrometer (Gas/MS, Finnigan MAT271). High purity HD gas was injected into Gas/MS, sensitivity was determined by a signal according to pressure, and HD concentrations in two bottles of D₂ were quantified using the corresponding sensitivity. The amount fraction of HD in each D₂ was (4518 ± 275) μmol/mol, (2282 ± 144) μmol/mol. D₂, which quantifies HD amount using the developed quantitative analysis method, will be manufactured with hydrogen isotope RM and distributed for quality management and maintenance of electronic industries and gas producers in the future.

• Journal of Periodontal and Implant Science
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.105-110
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• 2010

Purpose: It has been reported that low-level semiconductor diode lasers could enhance the wound healing process. The periodontal ligament is crucial for maintaining the tooth and surrounding tissues in periodontal wound healing. While low-level semiconductor diode lasers have been used in low-level laser therapy, there have been few reports on their effects on periodontal ligament fibroblasts (PDLFs). We performed this study to investigate the biological effects of semiconductor diode lasers on human PDLFs. Methods: Human PDLFs were cultured and irradiated with a gallium-aluminum-arsenate (GaAlAs) semiconductor diode laser of which the wavelength was 810 nm. The power output was fixed at 500 mW in the continuous wave mode with various energy fluencies, which were 1.97, 3.94, and 5.91 $J/cm^2$. A culture of PDLFs without laser irradiation was regarded as a control. Then, cells were additionally incubated in 72 hours for MTS assay and an alkaline phosphatase (ALPase) activity test. At 48 hours post-laser irradiation, western blot analysis was performed to determine extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) activity. ANOVA was used to assess the significance level of the differences among groups (P<0.05). Results: At all energy fluencies of laser irradiation, PDLFs proliferation gradually increased for 72 hours without any significant differences compared with the control over the entire period taken together. However, an increment of cell proliferation significantly greater than in the control occurred between 24 and 48 hours at laser irradiation settings of 1.97 and 3.94 $J/cm^2$ (P<0.05). The highest ALPase activity was found at 48 and 72 hours post-laser irradiation with 3.94 $J/cm^2$ energy fluency (P<0.05). The phosphorylated ERK level was more prominent at 3.94 $J/cm^2$ energy fluency than in the control. Conclusions: The present study demonstrated that the GaAlAs semiconductor diode laser promoted proliferation and differentiation of human PDLFs.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.269-275
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• 2004

Different biological tissues have different values of electrical resistivity. In EIT (electrical impedance tomography), we try to provide cross-sectional images of a resistivity distribution inside an electrically conducting subject such as the human body mainly for functional imaging. However, it is well known that the image reconstruction problem in EIT is ill-posed and the quality of a reconstructed image highly depends on the measurement error. This requires us to develop a high-performance EIT system. In this paper, we describe the development of a 16-channel digital EIT system including a single constant current source, 16 voltmeters, main controller, and PC. The system was designed and implemented using the FPGA-based digital technology. The current source injects 50KHz sinusoidal current with the THD (total harmonic distortion) of 0.0029% and amplitude stability of 0.022%. The single current source and switching circuit reduce the measurement error associated with imperfect matching of multiple current sources at the expense of a reduced data acquisition time. The digital voltmeter measuring the induced boundary voltage consists of a differential amplifier, ADC, and FPGA (field programmable gate array). The digital phase-sensitive demodulation technique was implemented in the voltmeter to maximize the SNR (signal-to-noise ratio). Experimental results of 16-channel digital voltmeters showed the SNR of 90dB. We used the developed EIT system to reconstruct resistivity images of a saline phantom containing banana objects. Based on the results, we suggest future improvements for a 64-channel muff-frequency EIT system for three-dimensional dynamic imaging of bio-impedance distributions inside the human body.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.51 no.6
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• pp.201-208
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• 2014

In this paper, we propose the classifier structure design algorithm using DTW. Proposed algorithm uses DTW result to design the binary tree architecture based on the SVM which classify the multi-class data. Design the binary tree architecture for Support Vector Machine(SVM-BTA) using the threshold criterion calculated by the sum columns in square matrix which components are the reference data from each class. For comparison the performance of the proposed algorithm, compare the results of classifiers which binary tree structure are designed based on database and k-means algorithm. The data used for classification is 333 signals from 18 classes of underwater transient noise. The proposed classifier has been improved classification performance compared with classifier designed by database system, and probability of detection for non-biological transient signal has improved compare with classifiers using k-means algorithm. The proposed SVM-BTA classified 68.77% of biological sound(BO), 92.86% chain(CHAN) the mechanical sound, and 100% of the 6 kinds of the other classes.

• Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.49 no.4
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• pp.293-297
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• 2006

Angiotensin converting enzyme(ACE) is a zinc-containing dipeptidase widely distributed in mammalian tissues and is thought to play a significant role in blood pressure regulation by hydrolyzing angiotensin I to the potent vasoconstrictor, angiotensin II. Recently, the presence of ACE in pig ovary was reported and the ACE from pig kidney was isolated and characterized. However no nucleotide sequence of the ACE gene from pig is yet known. We report here the cloning of the ACE cDNA from pig kidney by using the reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction. The complete amino acid sequence deduced from the cDNA contains 1309 residues with a molecular mass of 150 kDa, beginning with a signal peptide of 33 amino acids. Amino acid sequence analysis showed that pig kidney ACE is also probably anchored by a short transmembrane domain located near the C-terminus. This protein contains a tandem duplication of the two homologous amino acid peptidase domain. Each of these two domains bears a putative metal-binding site (His-Glu-Met-Gly-His) identified in mammalian somatic ACE. The alignment of pig ACE amino acid sequence with human, rabbit, and mouse reveals that both two domains have been highly conserved during evolution.

• Journal of Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.62 no.4
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• pp.417-424
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• 2019

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of Lespedeza maximowiczii var. tricolor Nakai (LMTN) on glucose metabolism. LMTN extract significantly enhanced the glucose uptake and lipid accumulation in 3T3-L1 adipocytes compared with control. Also, LMTN extract in 3T3-L1 adipocytes significantly increased the protein expression of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR)γ, insulin receptor substrate-1, and glucose transporter (GLUT)4. The regulatory effect on glucose uptake or insulin signal transduction of LMTM extract was lower than troglitazone or pinitol such as the positive control, but increased PPARγ activation. Additionally, LMTM extract has an insulin-mimetic effect. In db/db mice, LMTN extract (250 mg/kg BW) significantly reduced water and food intake, blood glucose, and level of plasma triglyceride and total cholesterol. Furthermore, the expression of PPARã and GLUT4 mRNA in adipose or muscle tissue effectively was increased by oral treatment of LMTN extract. Thus, our results suggest that LMTN extract improves the glucose metabolism through PPARγ and insulin-mimetic effect in 3T3-L1 adipocytes and db/db mice.