• Journal of Korean Medical classics
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.27-38
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• 2013

Objective : This article shows that while Seishu Hanaoka(華岡靑洲) is known to have developed an effective anesthetic formula composed of traditional herbs and performed the world first partial mastectomy under a general anesthesia in 1804, anesthetic formulas very similar to those developed by him were widely recorded and deemed used in Japan and Northeast Asia before his invention. The origin of the formulas will be tracked down to compare with the several formulas broadly administered in the region. Methods : Historical literature analysis was adopted to achieve the objective. 1. Mayaku-ku (麻藥考): this book is the main medical classic by Nakagawa Syutei(中川修亭) that introduces Seishu Hanaoka, his anesthetic formulas and mastectomy. 2. Northeast medical classics: Seuideukhyobang (世醫得效方) in 1337, Uibangryuchui (醫方類聚), Uihui(宜彙) and so on. Result : Herbs such as aconitum and datura were applied as a anesthetic agent early on before the Chinese Yuan dynasty. In Korea as well, some old medical books documented such use of those herbs and relevant formulas. Conclusion : Formulas that counted as invented and employed by Seishu Hanaoka as anesthetics, in fact, had been widely known and used in the region before his era. We should pay due attention to his creativity that combined a western surgical intervention and traditional anesthetic agents and successfully performed a newly introduced surgical practice in Japan. The point is that Hanaoka took note of anesthetic herbs or formulas traditionally inherited in North-east Asian medicine and successfully applied them to the surgical procedures for breast cancer, or mastectomy and mammotomy. This history alerts us to neglected or forgotten potentials of traditional medicine in anesthetic treatment and more.

• Journal of Acupuncture Research
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.27-38
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• 2009

목적 : 이 연구는 Vipera lebetinat turanica의 사독약침액(蛇毒藥鍼液)(Snake venom toxin, SVT)이 인간 유방암 세포주인 MCF-7과 MDA-MB-231 세포에서 암세포성장의 억제 및 그 기전에 대하여 살펴보고자 하였다. 방법 : SVT를 처리한 후 MCF-7과 MDA-MB-231의 성장억제를 관찰하기 위해 CCK-8 assay를 시행하였고, apoptosis 평가에는 TUNEL assay를 시행하였다. 세포자멸사 관련 세포기전을 보기 위하여 세포내 활성산소량 및 미토콘드리아의 세포막전위 변화를 측정하였고, 세포자멸사 조절 단백인 Bax, Bcl-2 발현 변화 관찰에는 westem blot analysis를 시행하였다. 결과 : MCF-7과 MDA-MB-231 세포에 SVT를 처리한 후, 유방암 세포의 성장, Apoptosis의 유발 및 기전에 미치는 영향을 관찰하여 다음과 같은 결과를 얻었다. 1. MCF-7 세포와 MDA-MB-231 세포에서 SVT를 처리한 후 유방암 세포 성장이 억제되었다. 2. TUNEL assay를 통한 세포자멸사 평가에서 SVT를 처리한 MCF-7세포와 MDA-MB-231 세포 모두 세포자멸사 활성세포의 유의한 증가를 나타내었다. 3. 세포자멸사 관련 세포기전연구에서 SVT를 처리한 MCF-7 세포와 MDA-MB-231 세포에서 세포내 활성산소의 유의한 증가와 미토콘드리아 세포막 전위의 유의한 변동이 관찰되었다. 4. SVT를 처리한 MCF-7세포와 MDA-MB-231세포는 세포자멸사 관련 단백 발현에서 Bax의 유의한 증가와 Bcl-2의 유의한 감소를 나타내었다. 결론 : 이상의 결과는 SVT가 세포내 활성산소를 증가시킴으로써 미토콘드리아의 세포막전위에 변화를 일으켜 유방암 세포주인 MCF-7과 MDA-MB-231 세포에 세포자멸사를 유발하여 증식억제 효과가 있음을 입증한 것이다.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.381-386
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• 2012

Obesity increases the risk of many adult diseases, such as atherosclerosis, diabetes, hypertension, ischemic heart disease and breast cancer. Inhibition of adipogenesis is an effective way in the anti-obesity management. Because of main components of Saururus chinensis is flavonoid, it has been showed some improvement by its antioxidant effects on the atherosclerosis, heart disease and diabetic hyperlipidemia. But mechanism of anti-obesity effect of S. chinensis is not clear. We investigated the effects of ethanol extracts of S. chinensis on adipogenesis in the 3T3-L1 pre-adipocyte. The 3T3-L1 cell line is commonly used to study adipogenesis in vitro. In this study, ethanol extracts of S. chinensis significantly decrease the lipid accumulation in the 3T3-L1 cells proved by measuring triglyceride contents and Oil red O staining. The proposed mechanism of inhibition of adipogenesis in the 3T3-L1 cells with ethanol extracts of S. chinensis is down-regulation of transcriptional factors and adipocyte-specific genes such CCAAT/enhancer binding protein ${\alpha}$ ($C/EBP{\alpha}$) and Peroxisome proliferator activated receptor ${\gamma}$ ($PPAR{\gamma}$) in concentration dependent pattern. These results suggest that ethanol extracts of S. chinensis inhibits adipognesis in the 3T3-L1 cells and can be used as a safe and efficient natural substance to manage anti-obesity.

• Journal of the Institute of Convergence Signal Processing
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.6-11
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• 2012

Digital mammogram is effective for detecting the micro-calcification that is early symptom of breast cancer. In the digital mammogram, many image processing techniques have been studied for accurate diagnosis and efficient treatment of micro-calcification lesion. The wavelet based multi-scale method was mainly used to enhance the image contrast. This paper presents an advanced mammography enhancement method which is based both on the brightness and the contrast enhancement in the wavelet domain. The proposed method normalizes a dynamic range using histogram of the image. The brightness is enhanced by modifying coefficients of low frequency components, and the contrast is enhanced by coefficients of high frequency component based on the multi-scale contrast measure. The experiment results show that the proposed method yields better performance of the image enhancement over the existing methods.

• Archives of Plastic Surgery
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.95-98
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• 2010

Purpose: One of the most common cause of upper extremity lymphedema is breast cancer surgery. We experienced the nerve entrapment syndrome which was associated with postmastectomy lymphedema. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first case report of lymphedema induced nerve entrapment syndrome on upper extremity in Korea. Methods: A 54-year-old woman presented with a tingling sensation on her right hand, which had been present for 1 year. On her history, she had a postmastectomy lymphedema on her right upper extremity for 20 years. Initial electromyography (EMG) showed that the ampulitude of the median, ulnar, and dorsal ulnar cutaneous nerve were decreased, and conduction block was also seen in median nerve across the wrist. In needle EMG, incomplete interference patterns were observed in the muscles innervated by median and ulnar nerves. In conclusion, electrophysiologic study and clinical findings suggested right median and ulnar neuropathy below the elbow. Therefore, we performed surgical procedures, which were release of carpal tunnel, Guyon's canal, and cubital tunnel. Results: The postoperative course was uneventful until the first two years. The tingling sensation and claw hand deformity were improved, however, the motor function decreased progressively. In 7 years after the operation, patient could not flex her wrist and thumb sufficiently. EMG which was performed recently showed that ulnar motor response was of low ampulitude. Moreover, median, ulnar, dorsal ulnar cutaneous, lateral antecubital cutaneous and median antebrachial cutaneous sensory response were unobtainable. Abnormal spontaneous activities were observed in upper arm muscles. In conclusion, multiple neuropathies were eventually developed at above elbow level. Conclusion: On treating nerve entrapments associated with lymphedema, medical professionals should be fully aware of the possibility of unpredictable results after the surgery, because of the pathophysiologic traits of chronic lymphedema.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.92-95
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• 2010

Endovascular stent grafting is regarded as a promising alternative approach to open surgical repair for treating various aortic diseases in high risk patients. We report here on a case of a 79-year-old female who underwent endovascular stent-graft insertion in the ascending aorta for treating a complicated ascending aortic rupture that occurred secondary to radiation necrosis during the treatment of recurrent breast cancer.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.129-135
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• 2016

Eukaryotic translation initiation factor 2 alpha ($eIF2{\alpha}$), which is a component of the eukaryotic translation initiation complex, functions in cell death and survival under various stress conditions. In this study, we investigated the roles of $eIF2{\alpha}$ phosphorylation in cell death using the breast cancer cell lines MCF-7 and MCF-7/ADR. MCF-7/ADR cells are MCF-7-driven cells that have acquired resistance to doxorubicin (ADR). Treatment of doxorubicin reduced the viability and induced apoptosis in both cell lines, although susceptibility to the drug was very different. Treatment with doxorubicin induced phosphorylation of $eIF2{\alpha}$ in MCF-7 cells but not in MCF-7/ADR cells. Basal expression levels of Growth Arrest and DNA Damage 34 (GADD34), a regulator of $eIF2{\alpha}$, were higher in MCF-7/ADR cells compared to MCF-7 cells. Indeed, treatment with salubrinal, an inhibitor of GADD34, resulted in the upregulation of $eIF2{\alpha}$ phosphorylation and enhanced doxorubicin-mediated apoptosis in MCF-7/ADR cells. However, MCF-7 cells did not show such synergic effects. These results suggest that dephosphorylation of $eIF2{\alpha}$ by GADD34 plays an important role in doxorubicin resistance in MCF-7/ADR cells.

• Korean Journal of Medicinal Crop Science
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.369-377
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• 2014

In order to find out anticancer activity of Korean pepper (Capsicum annuum L.), the cytotoxicity against 8 cell lines including 293 (normal kidney cells) and A-431 (epidermoid carcinoma cells) of extracts by extraction solvents and plant parts were investigated using MTT assay. Also the correlation between content of capsaicin known as anticancer ingredient and cytotoxicity of extracts from pepper were analyzed. The distilled water extracts from seed and germinated seed showed very high cytotoxicity against 6 cancer cell lines including A549 (lung carcinoma cells), AGS (stomach adenocarcinoma cells), HeLa (cervix adenocarcinoma cells), HepG2 (hepatoblastoma cells), HT-29 (colon adenocarcinoma cells), and MCF-7 (breast adenocarcinoma cells). But 80% ethanol and methanol extracts showed cytotoxicity against 293 and AGS. The $RC_{50}$, that was, the concentration of sample required for 50% reduction of cell viability, of seed and germinated seed extracts against AGS were $33.4{\sim}389.1{\mu}g/m{\ell}$ and $63.9{\sim}1,316.7{\mu}g/m{\ell}$, respectively, so anticancer activity was higher in seed than in germinated seed. In capsaicin contents, seed with high cytotoxicity and pericarp with a little cytotoxicity contained $47.4{\sim}1,260.0{\mu}g/g$ and $58.3{\sim}1,498.0{\mu}g/g$, respectively. As these results, the correlation was not between cytotoxicity and capsaicin content.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.17 no.2 s.82
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• pp.179-184
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• 2007

PTK6, an intracellular protein tyrosine kinase, is significantly overexpressed in a majority of breast cancers and has a role in promoting the proliferation of the cancer cells, but not of normal cells. Here, we report high-level production of the catalytic unit of PTK6 fused with Drosophila peptidoglycan recognition protein (PGRT)-LB, in the baculovirus system. We first found that the PGRP-LB was potentially useful as a fusion partner to increase the yield of heterologous protein in the baculovirus system. The purified recombinant protein exhibited a 1.5-fold activity with much higher yield than the bacterially-expressed protein. The protein expressed in the baculovirus system will be useful for the crystallization to determine its crystal structure helping understand the molecular mechanism of PTK6 and design its inhibitors.

• Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering:BBE
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.1-5
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• 2002

A fusion protein, consisting of a human epidermal growth factor (hEGF) as the recognition domain and human angiogenin as the toxin domain, can be used as a targeted therapeutic against breast cancer cells among others. The fusion protein was expressed as inclusion body in recombinant E. coli, and when the conventional, solution-phase refolding process was used the refolding yield was very low due to severe aggregation. It was probably because of the opposite electric charge at a neutral pH resulting from the vastly different pI values of each domain. The solid-phase refolding process that exploited the ionic interactions between ionic exchanger surface and the fusion protein was tried, but the adsorption yield was also very low, below $ 30\%$, regardless of the resins and pH conditions used. Therefore, to provide a higher ionic affinity toward the solid matrix, six lysine residues were tagged to the N-terminus of the hEGF domain. When heparin-Sepharose was used as the matrix, the adsorption capacity increased 2.5-3 times to about $88\%$. Besides the intrinsic affinity of angiogenin to heparin, the poly-lysine tag provided additional ionic affinity. And the subsequent refolding yield increased nearly 13-fold, from ca. $4.8\%$ in the conventional refolding of the untagged fusion protein to $63.6\%$. The process was highly reproducible. The refolded protein in the column eluate retained RNase bioactivity of angiogenin.