• Korean Journal of Plant Tissue Culture
• /
• v.24 no.4
• /
• pp.197-201
• /
• 1997

Plant seed oil-bodies or oleosomes ate the repository of the neutral lipid stored in seeds. These organelles in many oilseeds may comprise half of the total cellular volume. Oleosomes are surrounded by a half-unit membrane of phospholipid into which are embedded proteins called oleosins. Oleosins are present at high density on the oil-body surface and after storage proteins comprise the most abundant proteins in oilseeds. Oleosins are specifically targeted and anchored to oil-bodies after co-translation on the ER. It has been shown that the amino-acid sequences responsible for this unique targeting reside primarily in the central hydrophobic tore of the oleosin polypeptide. In addition, a signal-like sequence is found near the junction of the hydrophobic domain and ann N-terminal hydrophilic / amphipathic domain. This "signal" which is uncleaved is also essential for correct targeting. Oil-bodies and their associated oleosins may be recovered by floatation centrifugation of aqueous seed extracts. This simple partitioning step results in a dramatic enrichment for oleosins in the oil-body fraction. In the light of these properties, we reasoned that it would be feasible to create fusion proteins on oil-bodies comprising oleosins and an additional valuable protein of pharmaceutical or industrial interest. It was further postulated that if these proteins were displayed on the outer surface of oil-bodies, it would be possible to release them from the purified oil-bodies using chemical or proteolytic cleavage. This could result in a simple means of recovering high-value protein from seeds at a significant (i.e. commercial) scale. This procedure has been successfully reduced to practice for a wide variety of proteins of therapeutic, industrial and food no. The utillity of the method will be discussed using a blood anticoagulant, hirudin, and industrial enzymes as key examples.

• BMB Reports
• /
• v.41 no.6
• /
• pp.415-434
• /
• 2008

Phosphoinositide-specific phospholipase C is an effector molecule in the signal transduction process. It generates two second messengers, inositol-1,4,5-trisphosphate and diacylglycerol from phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate. Currently, thirteen mammal PLC isozymes have been identified, and they are divided into six groups: PLC-$\beta$, -$\gamma$, -$\delta$, -$\varepsilon$, -$\zeta$ and -$\eta$. Sequence analysis studies demonstrated that each isozyme has more than one alternative splicing variant. PLC isozymes contain the X and Y domains that are responsible for catalytic activity. Several other domains including the PH domain, the C2 domain and EF hand motifs are involved in various biological functions of PLC isozymes as signaling proteins. The distribution of PLC isozymes is tissue and organ specific. Recent studies on isolated cells and knockout mice depleted of PLC isozymes have revealed their distinct phenotypes. Given the specificity in distribution and cellular localization, it is clear that each PLC isozyme bears a unique function in the modulation of physiological responses. In this review, we discuss the structural organization, enzymatic properties and molecular diversity of PLC splicing variants and study functional and physiological roles of each isozyme.

• Proceedings of the KOSOMBE Conference
• /
• v.1998 no.11
• /
• pp.281-282
• /
• 1998

Recently, there has been growing interest in the assessment of physiological parameters on brain perfusion that provide more information than pure morphologic diagnosis. Quantification of parameters that characterize cerebral micro-circulation with magnetic resonance imaging is of great relevance for clinical application. We determine the local tissue concentration by exponential relationship between the relative signal reduction S(t)/$S_0$ and local tissue concentration of contrast material $C_m(t)$ in dynamic susceptibility contrast enhanced MR imaging. And then we made relative regional blood volume map by calculating the area under the measured concentration-time curves $C_m(t)$ during first pass of paramagnetic contrast material as a preliminary step for perfusion map. These images make it possible to compare the rCBV in different brain regions in one individual at a time. We have it in contemplation to obtain arterial and brain signal time curves simultaneously to make absolute rCBV and perfusion (rCBF) map. These maps may provide the method of comparative investigations of different patients having strong variation in AIF.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
• /
• v.20 no.2
• /
• pp.205-212
• /
• 1999

When we want to observe and record a patient's EEG in an operating room, the operation of electrosurgical unit(ESU) causes undesirable artifacts with high frequency and high voltage. These artifacts make the amplifiers of the conventional EEG system saturated and prevent the system from measuring the EEG signal. This paper describes a high-performance bipolar EEG amplifier for a CSA (compressed spectral array ) system with reduced ESU artifacts. The designed EEG amplifier uses a balanced filter to reduce the ESU artifacts, and isolates the power supply and the signal source of the preamplifier from the ground to cut off the current from the ESU to the amplifier ground. To cancel the common mode noise in high frequency, a high CMRR(common mode rejection ratio) diffferential amplifier is used. Since the developed bipolar EEG amplifier shows high gain, low noise, high CMRR, high input impedance, and low thermal drift, it is possible to observe and record more clean EEG signals in spite of ESU operation. Therefore the amplifier may be applicable to a high-fidelity CSA system.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
• /
• v.24 no.3
• /
• pp.175-181
• /
• 2003

Studies of muscle fatigue have mostly been checked under isometric exercise. However EMG signals from isotonic exercise generate uncontrollable noise, so there were difficulties in gathering reliable median frequency and muscle fatigue index if frequency analysis was equally applied in isometric exercise. This study tried to compare the differences of muscle fatigue determinant variables in terms of median frequency searching methods of EMG signal, which was estimated in isotonic exercise. To accomplish this, we determined median frequency by using different FFT intervals and overlapping ration of consecutive FFT sections under the same EMG signal, and then searched for a linear regression line, and compared initial median frequency, slope, and muscle fatigue index which were variables under the linear regression line. In result of comparison, initial median frequency was more elevated as FFT exercise interval became larger. The slope of the linear regression line showed distinguishable decreasing tendency as FFT intervals were larger and overlapping sections were smaller. Significant tendency of muscle fatigue index in FFT interval was shown by high muscle fatigue index in specific FFT intervals.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
• /
• v.24 no.3
• /
• pp.151-158
• /
• 2003

Numerous studies of short-term, beat-to-beat variability in cardiovascular signals have used linear analysis techniques. However, no study has been done about the appropriateness of linear techniques or the comparison between linearities and nonlinearities in short-term, beat-to-beat variability. This paper aims to verify the appropriateness of linear techniques by investigating nonlinearities in short-term, beat-to-beat variability. We compared linear autoregressive moving average(ARMA) with nonlinear neural network(NN) models for predicting current instantaneous heart rate(HR) and mean arterial blood pressure(BP) from past HRs and BPs. To evaluate these models. we used HR and BP time series from the MIMIC database. Experimental results indicate that NN-based nonlinearities do not play a significant role and suggest that 10 technique provides adequate characterization of the system dynamics responsible for generating short-term, beat-to-beat variability.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
• /
• v.25 no.5
• /
• pp.377-382
• /
• 2004

In the present study, thirteen healthy volunteers performed lumbar extension exercises at 48$^{\circ}$/s, loaded by 40, 50, 60kg(about 44, 55, 66％ of maximum voluntary contraction). During the whole period of exercises, electromyographic(EMG) signal was measured in the erector spinae muscle in order to determine muscle fatigue. Using the wavelet transform, EMG signal was separated by various frequency ranges in the time-frequency domain, and muscle fatigue was analyzed, comparing with the results based on the median frequency(MDF). MDF shifted toward the lower frequency ranges with the muscle fatigue, showing a single characteristic frequency. On the other hand, wavelet transform of EMG signals resulted in increased power amplitude in lower frequency ranges(0-125Hz), and decreased power amplitude in higher frequency ranges(375-468Hz). This study reveals that the muscle fatigue during dynamic movement is explained better by wavelet analysis.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
• /
• v.20 no.3
• /
• pp.307-314
• /
• 1999

This paper describes an informatlon compression of electrically evoked myoelectric signal, M-wave. This wave shows a direct response m lato-response of nerve conductlQn study and has a characteristic with finite time support. M-wave is a useful factor for investing neurodi~ease and is often desirable to have a compact description of its shape and time evolution. The aim of this paper is to show that the AR modeling IS a effective method for compressing an information of M-wave. First, AR model parameters of real M-wave are estimated. And then. they are verified by approximatmg a M-wave using estimated AR parameters and by comparing to other melhod, Hermite tlansform[4]. To concretely evaluate the proposed method, the NMSE(normalized mean square error) of approximation curves are compared. As a result, AR modeling is effective for M-wave assessment because of its capability for the information compression.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
• /
• v.20 no.3
• /
• pp.291-297
• /
• 1999

Source consislency filtering (SCF) is very effective at removing nOIse when only one or a few leads among multi-lead ECG signals are contaminated. When the noise at one or only a few leads are statistically uncorrelated with signals at other leads, SCF seleclIvely removes the noise with a neglIgIble amount of distortion in the original signal waveform. In order to enhance the understanding of this new method, we describe the lheory and implementational details of SCF in this paper. Numerical implementation and test results of SCF on a multi-lead ECG dalabase show that SCF is a new kind of adaptive filters utilizmg spatial as well as temporal information in multi-c.hannel signals origmatmg from a single source. We also describe the limitations and future improvements in using SCF.

• Journal of the Institute of Convergence Signal Processing
• /
• v.9 no.1
• /
• pp.1-9
• /
• 2008

One of the problems for implementing the spot detection phase in the 2-DE gel image analysis program is the eliminating noises in the image. Remained noises after the preprocessing phase cause the over-segmented regions by the segmentation phase. To identify and exclude the over-segmented background regions, if we use the fixed thresholding method that is choosing an intensity value for the threshold, the spots that is invisible by the eyes but mean a very small amount proteins which have important role in the biological samples could be eliminated. This paper propose an adaptive thresholding method that come from an idea that is got on statistical analysing for the prominences of the peaks. The adaptive thresholding method works as following. Firstly we calculate an average prominence value curve and fit it to exponential function curve, as a result we get parameters for the exponential function. And then we calculate a threshold value by using the parameters and probability distribution of errors. Lastly we apply the threshold value to the region for determining the region is a noise or not. According to the probability distribution of errors, the reliability is 99.85% and we show the correctness of the proposed method by representing experiment results.