• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.429-438
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• 2021

Bacterial cellulose (BC) is widely used in the food industry for products such as nata de coco. The mechanical properties of BC hydrogels, including stiffness and viscoelasticity, are determined by the hydrated fibril network. Generally, Komagataeibacter bacteria produce gluconic acids in a glucose medium, which may affect the pH, structure and mechanical properties of BC. In this work, the effect of pH buffer on the yields of Komagataeibacter hansenii strain ATCC 53582 was studied. The bacterium in a phosphate and phthalate buffer with low ionic strength produced a good BC yield (5.16 and 4.63 g/l respectively), but there was a substantial reduction in pH due to the accumulation of gluconic acid. However, the addition of gluconic acid enhanced the polymer density and mechanical properties of BC hydrogels. The effect was similar to that of the bacteria using glycerol in another carbon metabolism circuit, which provided good pH stability and a higher conversion rate of carbon. This study may broaden the understanding of how carbon sources affect BC biosynthesis.

• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.59-64
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• 2018

In the trend of increasing awareness of chemical accidents, hazardous chemical transport vehicle accidents are occurring every year. In this study, we analyzed improvement of accident prevention and countermeasures through statistical analysis of hazardous chemical transport vehicle accidents. A total of 383 chemical accidents between January 2014 and December 2017 were analyzed. During this period, number of transportation accidents was 83 cases, accounting for 21.67% of total chemical accidents. In the current system, despite the direct handling of hazardous chemical, it is out of regulation of damage prediction unlike the workplace. In order to effectively respond to actual accident, information on damage prediction is required and should be shared with related ministry. And it should be developed to real-time monitoring of hazardous chemical transport vehicle through integrated control tower.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.11
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• pp.6419-6425
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• 2013

Background: Neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) is a treatment modality whereby chemotherapy is used as the initial treatment of HNSCC in patients presenting with advanced cancer that cannot be treated by other means. It leads to shrinkage of tumours to an operable size without significant compromise to essential oro-facial organs of the patients. The molecular mechanisms behind shrinkage due to NACT is not well elucidated. Materials and Methods: Eleven pairs of primary HNSCCs and adjacent normal epithelium, before and after chemotherapy were screened for cell proliferation and apoptosis. This was followed by immunohistochemical analysis of some cell cycle (LIMD1, RBSP3, CDC25A, CCND1, cMYC, RB, pRB), DNA repair (MLH1, p53) and apoptosis (BAX, BCL2) associated proteins in the same set of samples. Results: Significant decrease in proliferation index and increase in apoptotic index was observed in post-therapy tumors compared to pre-therapy. Increase in the RB/pRB ratio, along with higher expression of RBSP3 and LIMD1 and lower expression of cMYC were observed in post-therapy tumours, while CCND1 and CDC25A remained unchanged. While MLH1 remained unchanged, p53 showed higher expression in post-therapy tumors, indicating inhibition of cell proliferation and induction of apoptosis. Increase in the BAX/BCL2 ratio was observed in post-therapy tumours, indicating up-regulation of apoptosis in response to therapy. Conclusions: Thus, modulation of the G1/S cell cycle regulatory proteins and apoptosis associated proteins might play an important role in tumour shrinkage due to NACT.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.27 no.9
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• pp.1692-1700
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• 2017

Ralstonia solanacearum causes bacterial wilt in a wide variety of host plant species and produces a melanin-like blackish-brown pigment in stationary phase when grown in minimal medium supplemented with tyrosine. To study melanin production regulation in R. solanacearum, five mutants exhibiting overproduction of melanin-like pigments were selected from a transposon (Tn) insertion mutant library of R. solanacearum SL341. Most of the mutants, except one (SL341T), were not complemented by the original gene or overproduced melanins. SL341T showed Tn insertion in a gene containing a conserved domain of eukaryotic transcription factor. The gene was annotated as a hypothetical protein, given its weak similarity to any known proteins. Upon complementation with its original gene, the mutant strains reverted to their wild-type phenotype. SL341T produced 3-folds more melanin at 72 h post-incubation compared with wild-type SL341 when grown in minimal medium supplemented with tyrosine. The chemical analysis of SL341T cultural filtrate revealed the accumulation of a higher amount of homogentisate, a major precursor of pyomelanin, and a lower amount of dihydroxyphenylalanine, an intermediate of eumelanin, compared with SL341. The expression study showed a relatively higher expression of hppD (encoding hydroxyphenylpyruvate dioxygenase) and lower expression of hmgA (encoding homogentisate dioxygenase) and nagL (encoding maleylacetoacetate isomerase) in SL341T than in SL341. SL341 showed a significantly higher expression of tyrosinase gene compared with SL341T at 48 h post-incubation. These results indicated that R. solanacearum produced both pyomelanin and eumelanin, and the novel hypothetical protein is involved in the negative regulation of melanin production.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.75-95
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• 2012

BACKGROUND: Increase of heavy metals in agricultural ecosystem has become a social issue nationwide as it is related to public health. This review was performed to find out more systematic and integrated future researches on heavy metals using up to date articles published in the Korean journals related to agricultural environment. METHODS AND RESULTS: Researches on heavy metals in agricultural soils and plant uptake were categorized by the establishment of criteria, analytical methods, monitoring, management of source, characteristics and behavior in soil, plant uptake, bioavailability affecting physico -chemical properties in soil, risk assessment and soil remediation. In the early 1990s, the monitoring for heavy metals in soil has been widely performed. Accumulation of heavy metals in contaminated soil and availability to plants has also attracted interests to study the soil remediation using various physico-chemical methods. The phytoavailability and phytotoxicity of heavy metals have been mainly studied to assess the safety of agro-products using risk assessment techniques in the 2000s. CONCLUSION: Future direction of research on heavy metal in agricultural environment must be carried out by ensuring food safety and sustainability. A steady survey and proper management for polluted regions should be continued. Law and regulation must be modified systematically. Furthermore, studies should expand on mitigation of heavy metal uptake by crops and remediation of polluted fields.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.22 no.10
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• pp.1324-1329
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• 2012

Phosphomannomutase (ManB) is involved in the biosynthesis of GDP-mannose, which is vital for numerous processes such as synthesis of carbohydrates, production of alginates and ascorbic acid, and post-translational modification of proteins. Here, we discovered that a deletion mutant of manB (BG101) in Streptomyces coelicolor (S. coelicolor) showed higher sensitivity to bacteriostatic chloramphenicol (CM) than the wild-type strain (M145), along with decreased production of CM metabolites. Deletion of manB also decreased the mRNA expression level of drug efflux pumps (i.e., cmlR1 and cmlR2) in S. coelicolor, resulting in increased sensitivity to CM. This is the first report on changes in antibiotic sensitivity to CM by deletion of one glycolysis-related enzyme in S. coelicolor, and the results suggest different approaches for studying the antibiotic-resistant mechanism and its regulation.

• BMB Reports
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• v.47 no.8
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• pp.445-450
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• 2014

Glucose regulated protein 78 (GRP78) is frequently highly expressed in tumor cells, contributing to the acquisition of several phenotypic cancer hallmarks. GRP78 expression is also positively correlated with tumor metastasis, and promotes hepatocellular carcinoma cell invasion via increasing cell motility, however, other mechanisms involving the prometastatic roles of GRP78 remain to be elucidated. Here we report that forced GRP78 expression promotes colon cancer cell migration and invasion through upregulating MMP-2, MMP-9 and especially uPA production. These effects of GRP78 are mediated by enhancing the activation of ${\beta}$-catenin signaling. Interestingly, we identify that GRP78 interacts with uPA both in the cells and in the culture medium, suggesting that GRP78 protein is likely to directly facilitate uPA secretion via protein-protein interaction. Taken together, our findings demonstrate for the first time that besides stimulation of cell motility, GRP78 can act by increasing proteases production to promote tumor cell invasion.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.46-52
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• 2018

Interest in fire prevention/fighting has been increased by large fire. It is important to install/manage the detector, alarm, firefighting facility, evacuation route and so on to minimize the damage from fire. Chemical plant is generally constructed by steel structure. So fireproofing is significantly required to chemical plant because steel structure should endure during fire. Currently, fireproofing should be applied up to 6m from ground by local regulation. But chemical plant can handle the large amount of flammable materials or only non-flammable materials. Required of fireproofing height by fire magnitude is studied in this thesis.

• Journal of Fisheries and Marine Sciences Education
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.828-835
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• 2013

Products from aquaculture have sometimes been focused on the problems caused by the contamination of chemical agents as the use of chemical agents in aquaculture has been annually increased. The risk of contamination of products by chemical agents is greater in freshwater than in seawater. In order to evaluate the food safety of a fish grown in freshwater, we investigated the residues of antibiotics (tetracycline, oxolinic acid and ciplofloxacin) and malachite green in cultured rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss. Malachite green, which was prohibited in the application of aquaculture, was not detected in samples tested in this study. The residual content of tetracycline was determined to be less than the permissible amount, <0.2 mg/kg. The contents of ciplofloxacin was also less than the permissible amount, <0.1 mg/kg. However, in case of oxolinic acid, one of samples was only exhibited higher content than the permissible amount (<0.1 mg/kg). The results obtained in this study suggested that the control and regulation of chemical agents such as antibiotics was important to maintain a safe and worry-free seafood supply.

• Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.43-48
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• 1991

New quinoline compounds were designed, synthesized, and examined with submitochondria. Most compounds showed high activity against NADH-ubiquinone oxidoreductase. Inhibition activity was mainly affected by the length of the lipophilic part, regardless of bulkiness or location of a phenyl group in the side chain. The $\beta-methyl$ group was demons)rated to be the optimal functionality on the nuclei of the quinoline derivatives so 4hat either deletion or insertion of a methylene on the group eliminated its activity.