• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.17
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• pp.7125-7128
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• 2014

Background: Acquired genetic alterations and presence of sensitizing mutations in the tyrosine kinase domain of EGFR and other signaling molecules have been found in different subsets of primary lung adenocarcinoma. The commonest EGFR mutations are small in frame deletions of exon 19 and a point mutation (L858R) in exon 21, having a combined occurrence of around 90%. The objective of this study was to determine the frequency and types of EGFR mutations in primary lung adenocarcinomas in Pakistan. Materials and Methods: EGFR mutations in tumor samples were screened by multiplex real time PCR. Briefly, DNA from formalin fixed paraffin-embedded tissue was amplified with primers and probes specific to 43 different EGFR mutations in a Cobas z 480 instrument. The assay detects mutations in four exons (18-21) of the EGFR gene. Results: Out of 94 patients, 65 were males and 29 females with a M:F ratio of 2.2: 1. The median age was 62 years (range, 28 - 85 years). In our biopsy samples 70 (74%) cases were of primary lung adenocarcinoma, whereas 24 (26%) were confirmed metastatic adenocarcinoma of primary lung origin. EGFR mutation was positive in 29% of the patients. The highest frequency of L858R was observed in 48% of these, followed by deletion in exon 19 (44%). In addition, other rare mutations such as compound G718X:S768I and insertions in exon 20 insertion were detected in approximately 4% of the patients. Conclusions: This study showed that Del 19 and L858R are the most frequent mutations in Pakistani lung adenocarcinoma patients and around 29% of the patients were found eligible for erlotinib therapy.

• Journal of Genetic Medicine
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.27-33
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• 2020

Purpose: Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is the most common lethal muscular dystrophy and is caused by the genetic variants of DMD gene. Because DMD is X-linked recessive and shows familial aggregates, prenatal diagnosis is an important role in the management of DMD family. We present our experience of prenatal molecular diagnosis and carrier detection based on multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR), multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification (MLPA), and linkage analysis. Materials and Methods: During study period, 34 cases of prenatal diagnosis and 21 cases of carrier detection were performed at the Seoul National University Hospital. Multiplex PCR and MLPA was used to detect the exon deletions or duplications. When the DMD pathogenic variant in the affected males is unknown and no DMD pathogenic variant is detected in atrisk females, linkage analysis was used. Results: The prenatal molecular diagnosis was offered to 34 fetuses. Twenty-five fetuses were male and 6 fetuses (24.0%) were affected. Remaining cases had no pathogenic mutation. We had 24 (80.0%) cases of known proband results; exon deletion mutation in 19 (79.2%) cases and duplication in 5 (20.8%) cases. Linkage analysis was performed in 4 cases in which 2 cases (50.0%) were found to be affected. In the carrier testing, among 21 cases including 15 cases of mother and 6 cases of female relative, 9 (42.9%) cases showed positive results and 12 (57.1%) cases showed negative results. Conclusion: Prenatal molecular diagnosis and carrier detection of DMD are effective and feasible. They are useful in genetic counseling for DMD families.

• Proceedings of the Zoological Society Korea Conference
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• 1998.10b
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• pp.113-113
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• 1998

In Saccharomyces cerevisiae UV irradiation and a variety of chemical DNA -damaging agents induce the transcription of specific genes, including several involved in DNA repair. One of the best characterized of DNA -damage inducible genes is PHRI, which encodes the apoenzyme for DNA photolyase. Basal-level and damage-induced expression of PHRI require an upstream activation sequence, UASPHRI. Here we report the identification of the UlvIE6 gene of S. cerevisiae as a regulator of UASPHRl activity. Surprisingly, the effect of deletion of UME6 is growth phase dependent. In wild-type cells PHRI is induced in late exponential phase, concomitant with the initiation of glycogen accumulation that precedes the diauxic shift. Deletion of UNIE6 abolishes this induction, decreases the steady-state concentration of photolyase molecules and PHRI mRNA, and increases the UV sensitivity of a rad2 mutant. The results suggest that UM E6 contributes to the regulated expression of a subset of damage-responsive genes in yeast. Furthermore, the upstream repression sequence, URSPHRI, is required for repression and damage-induced expression of PHRl. Here we show identification of YER169W and YDR096W as putative regulators acting through $URS_{PHRI}$. These open reading frames were designated as RPHI (YERl69W) and RPH2 (YDR096W) indicating regulator of PHRI. Simultaneous disruption of both genes showed a synergistic effect, producing a four-fold increase in basal level expression and a similar decrease m the induction ratio following treatment of methyl methanesulfonate(MMS). Mutation of the sequence ($AG_4$) bound by Rphlp rendered the promoter of PHRI insensitive to changes in RPHI or RPH2 status. The data suggest that RPHI and RPH2 act as damage-responsive negative regulators of PHRI. Surprisingly, the sequence bound by Rphlp in vitro is found to be $AG_4$ which is identical to the consensus binding site for the regulators Msn2p and Msn4p involved in stress-induced expression. Deletion of MSN2 and MSN4 has little effect on the induction$.$ ratio following DNA damage. However, all deletions led to a significant decrease in basal-level and induced expression of PHRI. These results imply that MSN2 and MSN4 are positive regulators of P HRI but are not required for DNA damage repression. [Supported by grant from NIH]om NIH]

• Journal of Microbiology
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.523-529
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• 2006

OSH3 is one of the seven yeast homologues of the oxysterol binding proteins (OSBPs) which have the major binding affinity to the oxysterols and function as regulator of cholesterol biosynthesis in mammals. Mutational analysis of OSH3 showed that OSH3 plays a regulatory role in the yeast-to-hyphal transition through its oxysterol-binding domain in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The OSH3 gene was also identified in the pathogenic yeast Candida albicans. Deletion of OSH3 caused a defect in the filamentous growth, which is the major cause of the C. albicans pathogencity. The filamentation defect of the mutation in the MAPK-associated transcription factor, namely $cph1{\Delta}$ was suppressed by overexpression of OSH3. These findings suggest the regulatory roles of OSH3 in the yeast filamentous growth and the functional conservations of OSH3 in S. cerevisiae and C. albicans.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.29 no.10
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• pp.1500-1507
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• 2016

Myostatin (MSTN) can negatively regulate the growth and development of skeletal muscle, and natural mutations can cause "double-muscling" trait in animals. In order to block the inhibiting effect of MSTN on muscle growth, we transferred zinc-finger nucleases (ZFN) which targeted sheep MSTN gene into cultured fibroblasts. Gene targeted colonies were isolated from transfected fibroblasts by serial dilution culture and screened by sequencing. Two colonies were identified with mono-allele mutation and one colony with bi-allelic deletion. Further, we introduced the MSTN-ZFN mRNA into sheep embryos by microinjection. Thirteen of thirty-seven parthenogenetic embryos were targeted by ZFN, with the efficiency of 35%. Our work established the technical foundation for generation of MSTN gene editing sheep by somatic cloning and microinjection ZFN into embryos.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.385-391
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• 2001

Filamentous hemagglutinin (FHA) is considered as an essential immunogenic component for incorporation into acellular vaccines against Bordetella pertussis, the causative agent of whooping cough. Classically, antipertussis vaccination has employed an intramuscular route. An alternative approach to stimulate mucosal and systemic immune responses is oral immunization with recombinant live vaccine carrier strains of Salmonella typhimurium. An attenuated live Salmonella vaccine sgrain($\Delta$cya $\Delta$crp) expressing recombinant FHA(rFHA) was developed. Stable expressionof rFHA was achieved by the use of balanced-lethal vector-host system. which employs an asd deletion in the host chromosome to impose in obligate requirement for diaminopimelic acid. The chromosomal $\Delta$asd mutation was complemented by a plasmid vector possessing the asd$^{+}$ gene. A 3 kb DNA fragment encoding immuno dominant regionof FHA was subcloned in-frame downstream to the ATG translation initiation codon in the multicopy Asd$^{+}$ pYA3341 vector to create pYA3457. Salmonella vaccine harboring pYA3457 expressed approximately 105kDa rFHA protein. The 100% maintenance of [YA3457 in vaccine strain was confirmed by stability examinations. Additionally, a recombinant plasmid pYA3458 was constructed to overpress His(8X)-tagged rFHA in Essherichia coli. His-tagged rFHA was purified from the E. coli strain harboring pYA3458 using Ni$^{2+}$-NTA affinity purification system.>$^{2+}$-NTA affinity purification system.

• BMB Reports
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.167-172
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• 1997

The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, mutant CH117, shows a drug-hypersensitivity (dhs) to cycloheximide, bleomycin, actinomycin D, 5-fluorouracil. nystatin, nigericin and several other antibiotics. CH 117 was also temperature-sensitive (ts). being unable to grow at $37^{\circ}C$ and secreted more invertase and acid phosphatase into the medium than the parent yeast. CH117 grows very slowly and the cell shape is somewhat larger and more sensitive to zymolyase than the wild type cells. Light microscopic and electron microscopic observation also revealed abnormality of the mutant cell wall. These characteristics indicate that CH117 has a defect in an essential component of the cell surface and that the cell wall which performs barrier functions has become leaky in the mutant. We screened a genomic library of wild type yeast for clones that can complement the mutation of CH117. A plasmid, pCHX1, with an insert of 3.6 kilobases (kbs) could complement the dhs and ts of CH117. Deletion and subcloning of the 3.6 kb insert showed that a gene for the complementation of mutant phenotypes was located in 1.9 kbs Puvll-Hindlll fragment.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Developmental Biology Conference
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.14-17
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• 2001

Positional clonging (map-based cloning) of mutations or genetic variations has been served as an invaluable tool to understand in-vivo functions of genes and to identify molecular components underlying phenotypes of interest. Mice homozygous for the cerebellar deficient folia (cdf) mutation are ataxic, with cerebellar hypoplasia and abnormal lobulation of the cerebellum. In the cdf mutant cerebellum approximately 40% of Purkinje cells are ectopically located within the white matter and the inner granule cell layer (IGL). To identify the cdf gene, a high-resolution genetic map for the cdf-gene-encompassing region was constructed using 1997 F2 mice generated from C3H/HeSnJ-cdf/cdf and CAST/Ei intercross. The cdf gene showed complete linkage disequilibrium with three tightly linked markers D6Mit208, D6Mit359, and D6Mit225. A contig using YAC, BAC, and P1 clones was constructed for the cdf critical region to identify the gene. A deletion in the cdf critical region on chromosome 6 that removes approximately 150 kb of DNA selection. cdf mutant mice with the transgenic copy of the identified gene restored the brain abnormalities of the mutant mice. The positional cloning of cdf gene provides a good example showing the identification of a gene could lead to finding a new component of important molecular pathways.

• Proceedings of the KSAR Conference
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• 2004.06a
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• pp.226-226
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• 2004

Circling (cir) mouse is a spontaneous mutant in the inner ear that was first reported in Korea. The mutation is transmitted by an autosomal recessive gene with 100 %- penetrance.. Homozygous mice are characterized by head-tossing, bi-directional circling behavior and deafness. Histologicalexamination of the inner ear reveals abnormalities of the region around the organ of Corti, spiral ganglion neurons, and outer hair cells. (omitted)

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.75-79
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• 1991

The yeast L-A virus (4.6 kb dsRNA genome) encodes the major coat protein and a "gag-pol" fusion minor coat protein that separately encapsidate itself and $M_{1}$, a 1.8 kb dsRNA satellite virus encoding a secreted protein toxin (the killer toxin). The teast chromosomal SKI genes prevent viral cytopathology by lowering the virus copy number. Thus, $ski^{-}$ mutants are ts and cs for growth. We transformed a ski2-2 virus-infested mutant with a yeast bank in a high copy cloning vector and selected the rare healthy transformants for analysis. One type of transformant segregated M-O L-A-O cells with high frequency. Elimination of the DNA clone from the ski2-2 strain eliminated this phinotype and introduction of the DNA clone recovered from such transformants into the parent ski2-2 strain, or into ski3 or ski6 mutants gave the same phenotype. This killer-curing phenotype was due to the curing of the helper L-A dsRNA virus. The 6.5 kb insert only had this activity when carried on a high copy vector and in $ski^{-}$ cells (not in $SKI^{+}$ cells). This 6.5 kb insert acts as a mutagen on L-A dsRNA producing a high rate of deletion mutations.mutations.