• Journal of Microbiology
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.11-22
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• 2006

Escherichia coli protein Rho is required for the factor-dependent transcription termination by an RNA polymerase and is essential for the viability of the cell. It is a homohexameric protein that recognizes and binds preferably to C-rich sites in the transcribed RNA. Once bound to RNA, it utilizes RNA-dependent ATPase activity and subsequently ATPase-dependent helicase activity to unwind RNA-DNA hybrids and release RNA from a transcribing elongation complex. Studies over the past few decades have highlighted Rho as a molecule and have revealed much of its mechanistic properties. The recently solved crystal structure could explain many of its physiological functions in terms of its structure. Despite all these efforts, many of the fundamental questions pertaining to Rho recognition sites, differential ATPase activity in response to different RNAs, translocation of Rho along the nascent transcript, interactions with elongation complex and finally unwinding and release of RNA remain obscure. In the present review we have attempted to summarize 'the knowns' and 'the unknowns' of the Rho protein revealed by the recent developments in this field. An attempt has also been made to understand the physiology of Rho in the light of its phylogeny.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetic Resonance Society
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.31-44
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• 1997

The effect of the binding of CRP to the symmetrically synthetic 22, 28, and 30 bp lac promoter was investigated by 1H NMR. The binding of cAMP*CRP to the 22 bp DNA did not bring about any changes in the chemical shift values, but did cause selective line broadening of imino proton resonances of specific base pairs. However, The binding of cAMP*CRP to the 28 and 30 bp DNA brought about large changes on the imino proton resonances that seems to be induced by DNA bending. We studied also the role of cAMP as an activator of DNA/CRP complex formation by gel mobility shift assay. Gel mobility shift assay revealed that the cAMP*CRP complex was not able to bind to the 22 bp DNA fragment, but was able to bind to the 28 bp DNA fragment of lac promoter region.

• Korean Journal of Plant Taxonomy
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.353-360
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• 2011

The sequence data of the plastid DNA (trnL-F IGS, trnL intron, and trnH-psbA) and nuclear DNA (RNApol2_i23) markers were utilized to study phylogenetic relationships among the taxa in the Polygonatum odoratum complex (Ruscaceae). European P. odoratum individuals form a clade with a high bootstrap value, which is a sister to the clade of Korean P. odoratum var. odoratum, P. odoratum var. pluriflorum and P. robustum. The formation of the clade with P. odoratum var. odoratum, P. robustum, and one accession of P. odoratum var. pluriflorum indicates geological speciation in isolated populations in the islands following dispersal events from the mainlands. All data sets form two major clades, which are congruent with the subgroups divided by the basic chromosome numbers (x = 9 and x = 10). Although it is not easy to test the hypothesis of the decrease in the basic chromosome number due to scatter taxon sampling in this study, the molecular data strongly suggested that aneuploidy plays an important role in lineage diversification in the genus Polygonatum. The cytological data was not strongly supported by the cpDNA sequences. Further investigations of the cytological, morphological, and geographical characteristics with comprehensive sampling are desired to understand the evolution and lineage diversification in the genus.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.1875-1878
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• 2013

• Journal of the Korean Magnetic Resonance Society
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.66-70
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• 2016

The replication protein A (RPA), is a heterotrimer with 70, 32 and 14 kDa subunits and plays a crucial role in DNA replication, recombination, and repair. The largest subunit, RPA70, binds to single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) and mediates interactions with many cellular and viral proteins. In this study, we performed nuclear magnetic resonance experiments on the complex of the DNA binding domain A of human RPA70 (RPA70A) with ssDNA, d(CCCCC), at various temperatures, to understand the temperature dependency of ssDNA binding affinity of RPA70A. Essential residues for ssDNA binding were conserved while less essential parts were changed with the temperature. Our results provide valuable insights into the molecular mechanism of the ssDNA binding of human RPA.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.607-611
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• 2007

To improve transfection efficiency, we prepared histidine-low molecular weight water-soluble chitosan (LMWSC) having the potential to form complex with DNA as a cationic polymer. Histidine-LMWSC was synthesized by the esterification reaction and removing phthaloyl group. The histidine-LMWSC was characterized using FT-IR, $^1H$ NMR spectra. Histidine-LMWSC was complexed with plasmid DNA (pDNA) in various polymer/DNA (N/P) weight ratios, and the complex was identified using gel retardation assay. The particle sizes of the hisitidine-LMWSC/DNA complexes were measured on a DLS instrument by fixing the histidine-LMWSC/DNA weight ratio of 10/1. Owing to the utilization of a large excess amount of cationic LMWSC against anionic DNA, the particle size of histidine-LMWSC/DNA complexes was in the range of 100~200 nm. Therefore, histidine-LMWSC will be useful in the development of gene carriers.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems Conference
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• 2001.12a
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• pp.225-228
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• 2001

DNA computing has been applied to the problem of getting an optimal solution since Adleman's experiment. DNA computing uses strings with various length and four-type bases that makes more useful for finding a global optimal solutions of the complex multi-modal problems. This paper presents DNA coding method for finding optimal solution of the multi-modal function and compares the efficiency of this method with the genetic algorithms (GA). GA searches effectively an optimal solution via the artificial evolution of individual group of binary string and DNA coding method uses a tool of calculation or Information store with DNA molecules and four-type bases denoted by the symbols of A(Ademine), C(Cytosine), G(Guanine) and T(Thymine). The same operators, selection, crossover, mutation, are applied to the both DNA coding algorithm and genetic algorithms. The results show that the DNA based algorithm performs better than GA.

• YAKHAK HOEJI
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• v.43 no.5
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• pp.623-628
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• 1999

DA-125, a new antitumor agent, was compared with adriamycin, a known DNA intercalator, in terms of inhibitory mechanism of DNA replication by using replicating simian virus 40 (SV40) genome in vivo. In analyzing the SV40 DNA replication intermediates present in cells treated with DA-125, it was not observed to accumulate B-dimers of SV40 DNA which are prominent in adriamycin-treated cells. However, treatment with DA-125 induced dose-dependent formation of DNA-topoisomerase complex which is characteristic of topoisomerase poisons. In addition, DA-125 showed more efficient in inhibiting SV40 DNA replication than adriamycin. Therefore, on the basis of this observation, we suggest that DA-125, a derivative of adriamycin, inhibits DNA replication by blocking topoisomerase activity as a toposomerase poison although adriamycin blocks topoisomerase activity as a DNA intercalator.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.177-182
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• 2011

A diketo-type ligand was synthesized by the Knoevenagel condensation reaction of thiophene-2-aldehyde with acetylacetone, subsequently its transition metal complexes with Cu(II), Ni(II), and Co(II) chlorides were also prepared. All the complexes were characterized by various physico-chemical methods. The molar conductivity data reveals ionic nature for the complexes. The electronic spectrum and the EPR values suggest square planar geometry for the Cu(II) ion. Interaction of the Cu(II) complex with CTDNA (calf thymus DNA) was studied by absorption spectral method and cyclic voltammetry. The $k_{obs}$ values versus [DNA] gave a linear plot suggesting psuedo-first order reaction kinetics. The cyclic voltammogram of the Cu(II) complex reveals a quasi-reversible wave attributed to Cu(II)/Cu(I) redox couple for one electron transfer with $E_{1/2}$ values -0.240 V and -0.194 V. respectively. On addition of CTDNA, there is a shift in the $E_{1/2}$ values 168 mV and 18 mV respectively and decrease in Ep values. The shift in $E_{1/2}$ values in the presence of CTDNA suggests strong binding of Cu(II) complex to the CTDNA.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.9-14
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• 2003

Recent studies indicated that cancer cells become resistant to ionizing radiation (IR) and chemotherapy drugs by enhanced DNA repair of the lesions. Therefore, it is expected to increase the killing of cancer cells and reduce drug resistance by inhibiting DNA repair pathways that tumor cells rely on to escape chemotherapy. There are a number of key human DNA repair pathways which depend on multimeric polypeptide activities. For example, Ku heterodimer regulatory DNA binding subunits (Ku70/Ku80) on binding to double strand DNA breaks (DSBs) are able to interact with 470-kDa DNA-dependent protein kinase catalytic subunit (DNA-PKcs), and are essential for DNA-dependent protein kinase (DNA-PK) activity. It has been known that DNA-PK is an important factor for DNA repair and also is a sensor-transmitting damage signal to downstream targets, leading to cell cycles arrest. Our ultimate goal is to develop a treatment of breast tumors by targeting proteins involved in damage-signaling pathway and/or DNA repair. This would greatly facilitate tumor cell cytotoxic activity and programmed cell death through DNA damaging drug treatment. Therefore, we designed a domain of Ku80 mutants that binds to Ku70 but not DNA end binding activity and used the peptide in co-therapy strategy to see whether the targeted inhibition of DNA-PK activity sensitized breast cancer cells to irradiation or chemotherapy drug. We observed that the synthesized peptide (HNI-38) prevented DNA-PKcs from binding to Ku70/Ku80, thus resulting in inactivation of DNA-PK activity. Consequently, the peptide treated cells exhibited poor to no DNA repair, and became highly sensitive to IR or chemotherapy drugs, and the growth of breast cancer cells was inhibited. Additionally, the results obtained in the present study also support the physiological role of resistance of cancer cells to IR or chemotherapy.