• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.186-193
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• 2021

Ciona intestinalis and Ciona savignyi have been designated as hazardous species because they have caused great damages as they appeared in ports, ships, and farms in Korea in large amount. Therefore, in terms of using them, the possibility of use as cosmetic ingredients was examined. C. intestinalis and C. savignyi were treated with 70% ethanol to make an extract and then their antioxidant activity was measured. C. intestinalis and C. savignyi showed 71.80% and 21.40% of DPPH at 20mg/mL of extract, respectively. ABTS was 95.47% and 27.53%, while nitric oxide production inhibitory ability was 97.47% and 88.90%, respectively. Total phenol content was 0.081 and 0.041 mg gallic acid/mg extract, respectively. As a result, C. intestinalis showed somewhat higher antioxidant activity than C. savignyi. It is confirmed that these extracts are animal-derived antioxidants that can be used as cosmetic materials.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.1-5
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• 2017

A native species to the European ocean, the tunicate Ciona intestinalis now appears worldwide, from sub-Arctic to tropical regions. C. intestinalis generally occurs as an opportunistic fouling organism on artificial substrates in harbors or aquaculture. This study focused on estimating the early growth pattern of C. intestinalis under various temperature conditions. Adults were collected from the Guryungpo harbour in November 2016, and their artificially inseminated eggs were used for the study. The growth of the C. intestinalis was investigated at 8 constant temperatures, ranging from $12^{\circ}C$ to $26^{\circ}C$, at 30 psu. Results indicate that the growth of C. intestinalis increased with increasing temperature. The growth was sluggish at $12^{\circ}C$, and decreased at $26^{\circ}C$. The optimal temperature for growth of C. intestinalis was therefore estimated to be between $20^{\circ}C$ and $24^{\circ}C$.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.301-301
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• 2005

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.35 no.11
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• pp.3389-3392
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• 2014

• Development and Reproduction
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.81-88
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• 2003

Initiation and activation of sperm motility are prerequisite processes for the contact and fusion of male and female gametes at fertilization. The phenomena are under the regulation of CAMP and $Ca^{2+}$ in vertebrates and invertebrates. Mammalian sperm requires $Ca^{2+}$and cyclic AMP for the activation of sperm motility. Cell signaling for the initiation and activation of sperm motility has been well studied in the ascidians, Ciona intestinalis and C. savignyi and salmonid fishes. In Ciona, whose cell signaling for activation of sperm motility has been established, the sperm-activating and -attracting factor released from unfertilized egg requires extracellular $Ca^{2+}$ for activating sperm motility and eliciting chemotactic behavior of the activated sperm toward the egg. On the other hand, the cyclic AMP-dependent phosphorylation of protein is essential for the initiation of sperm motility in salmonid fishes. A decrease in the environmental Ti concentration surrounding the spawned sperm causes a li efflux and $Ca^{2+}$ influx through the specific $K^{+}$ channel and dihydropyridine-sensitive L-/T- type $Ca^{2+}$ channel, respectively, thereby leading to the membrane hyperpolarization and $Ca^{2+}$ influx. The membrane hyperpolarization synthesizes cyclic AMP, which triggers the luther Process of cell signaling, i.e., cyclic AMP-dependent protein phosphorylation, to initiate sperm motility in salmond fishes.almond fishes.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.48 no.6
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• pp.913-919
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• 2015

In vertebrates, the vitamin D receptor (VDR), a member of the nuclear receptor superfamily, binds the biologically active ligand $1{\alpha},25-(OH)_2$-vitamin $D_3$ (1,25 $D_3$). Nearly all vertebrates, including Agnatha, possess a VDR with high ligand selectivity for 1,25 $D_3$ and related metabolites. Although a putative ancestral VDR gene is present in the genome of the chordate invertebrate Ciona intestinalis, the functional characteristics of marine invertebrate VDR are still obscure. To elucidate the ascidian Halocynthia roretzi VDR (HrVDR), we cloned full-length HrVDR cDNA and investigated the transcriptional activity of HrVDR in HEK293 cells. HrVDR consists of 1,680 nucleotides (559 amino acids [aa]), including a short N-terminal region (A/B domain; 26 aa), DNA-binding domain (C domain; 72 aa), hinge region (D domain; 272 aa), and C-terminal ligand-binding domain (E domain; 161 aa). The amino acid sequence identity of HrVDR was greatest to that of C. intestinalis VDR (56%). In the luciferase reporter assays, the transcriptional activity of HrVDR was not significantly increased by 1,25 $D_3$, whereas the farnesoid X receptor agonist GW4064 increased the transactivation of HrVDR. These results suggest the presence of a novel ligand for and a distinct ligand-binding domain in ascidian VDR.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.677-683
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• 2017

The Korean aquaculture industry was generally began in the 1970s and has gradually increased. Now, the number of households is about 7,068 and the scale of an aquaculture farm is about 248,014 ha; the value of all production in the industry is estimated to be about 1602.2 billion won. The aquaculture industry is very valuable and important for future food resources. However, the aquaculture industry was damaged by several marine ecological disturbance causing organisms. The Ascdiella aspersa colonized on the shell of scallop and then scallops were detached from rope. The patterns of damage in the aquacultures were observed in Tongyeong (oyster), Geojedo (oyster), and Gangneung (sea squirt) in June, 2017, as well as in Tongyeong (oyster) in November, 2017 by SCUBA divers. The species Halichondria bowerbanki, Bugula neritina, Mytilus galloprovincialis, Balanus amphitrite, Ascidiella aspersa, Ciona intestinalis, Didemnum sp, Styela plicata in Tongyeong, M. galloprovincialis, A. aspersa, C. intestinalis, D. vexillum, S. plicata in Geojedo, and M. galloprovincialis in Gangneung were all usually found in their farms. The marine ecological disturbance causing organisms gave rise to a reduced number of aquaculture products.

• Animal cells and systems
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.107-111
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• 1998

Two kinds of humoral factors were observed in 2 orders, 7 families, 10 genera, and 15 different species of Korean ascidians. They are the naturally occuring hemagglutinins and/or hemolysins against human erythrocytes A, B, and 0. All but two species showed aggregative activity, although there were considerable variations in titer. The weak agglutinating and lytic activities were increased in the presence of $Ca^{++}$. Much higher activities of agglutination and/or lysis were shown in the hemolymph than extracts from tissues, and a higher response was shown in adults than in juveniles. No distinct differences from collected locations were observed. The hemolymph of Ciona intestinalis showed a strong hemolytic (cytotoxic) and weak agglutinins capacities. In addition, hemolymph of Styela plicata and Styela clava clava also showed hemoagglutining and hemolytic activities. Botryllus tuberatus had hemagglutining and weak lytic activities. Other species showed only hemagglutining activity. These agglutining activities are probably responsible for carbohydrate recognition in solitary or colonial ascidian. The lytic activity is probably responsible for antibacterial defense and nonfusion reactions between allogeneic colonial ascidians, especially the genus of Botryllus. The occurrences of humoral factors in ascidians were independent of their geographic distributions.

• Proceedings of the Korean Information Science Society Conference
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• 2008.06c
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• pp.217-221
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• 2008

생명공학 기술의 발달로 지놈 프로젝트를 통해 인간 초파리 등 여러 종의 유전체 정보가 밝혀 졌다. 그러나 Post-Genome 연구에 있어서 매우 중요한 생물체인 멍게(Ciona intestinalis)와 성게(Strongylocentrotus purpuratus)의 유전체 서열은 현재 공개되어 있으나 염기서열의 연속성(continuity)에는 심각한 문제점이 존재하고 있다. 이들은 염기서열에 변이가 많은 다염기변이 유전체(polymorphic genomes)로 그 특성이 반영되지 않은 전통적인 Whole Genome Shotgun Sequencing(WGSS)방법을 사용였기 때문이다. 이와 같은 다염기변이 유전체 서열 분석은 시스템 생물학이나 비교 유전체학 등의 후발 연구에 기초가 되므로 매우 중요하다. 본 논문에서는 다염기변이 유전체에 대해 알아보고 서열 조립 알고리즘의 기본이 되는 서열 정렬 툴들 중 가장 많이 사용되는 FASTA, BLAST, BLAT에 대해 분석하여 봄으로써 다염기변이 유전체에 적합한 서열 조립 전략 수립을 위해 고려해야 하는 사항들을 논의해 본다.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.21 no.7
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• pp.1032-1038
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• 2011

Recently identified Ciona intestinalis voltage sensor-containing phosphatase (Ci-VSP) consists of an ion channel-like transmembrane domain (VSD) and a phosphatase-like domain. Ci-VSP senses the change of membrane potential by its VSD and works as a phosphoinositide phosphatase by its phosphatase domain. In this study, we present the construction of His-tagged phosphatase-like domain of Ci-VSP, its recombinant expression and purification, and its enzymatic activity behavior in order to examine the biochemical behavior of phosphatase domain of Ci-VSP without interference. We found that Ci-VSP(248-576)-His can be eluted with an elution buffer containing 25 mM NaCl and 100 mM imidazole during His-tag purification. In addition, we found the proper measurement condition for kinetics study of Ci-VSP(248-576)-His against p-nitrophenyl phosphate (pNPP). We measured the kinetic constant of Ci-VSP(248-576)-His at $37^{\circ}C$, pH 5.0 or 5.5, under 30 min of reaction time, and less than $2.0\;{\mu}g$ of protein amount. With these conditions, we acquired that Ci-VSP(248-576)-His has $K_m$ of $354{\pm}0.143\;{\mu}M$, $V_{max}$ of $0.0607{\pm}0.0137\;{\mu}mol$/min/mg and $k_{cat}$ of $0.359{\pm}0.009751\;min^{-1}$ for pNPP dephosphorylation. Therefore, we produced a pure form of Ci-VSP(248-576)-His, and this showed a higher activity against pNPP. This purified protein will provide the road to a structural investigation on an interesting protein, Ci-VSP.