• Journal of Periodontal and Implant Science
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• v.38 no.sup2
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• pp.317-324
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• 2008

Purpose: Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans was associated with localized aggressive periodontitis, endocarditis, meningitis, and osteomyelitis. The cytolethal distending toxin (CDT) of A. actinomycetemcomitans was considered as a key factor of these diseases is composed of five open reading frames (ORFs). Among of them, An enzymatic subunit of the CDT, CdtB has been known to be internalized into the host cell in order to induce its genotoxic effect. However, CdtB can not be localized in host cytoplasm without the help of a heterodimeric complex consisting of CdtA and CdtC. So, some studies suggested that CdtC functions as a ligand to interact with GM3 ganglioside of host cell surface. The precise role of the CdtC protein in the mechanism of action of the holotoxin is unknown at the present time. The aim of this study was to generate recombinant CdtC proteins expression from A. actinomycetemcomitans, through gene cloning and protein used to investigate the function of Cdt C protein in the bacterial pathogenesis. Materials and Methods: The genomic DNA of A. actinomycetemcomitans Y4 (ATCC29522) was isolated using the genomic DNA extraction kit and used as template to yield cdtC genes by PCR. The amplifed cdtC genes were cloned into T-vector and cloned cdt C gene was then subcloned to pET28a expression vector. The pET28a-cdtC plasmid expressed in BL21 (DE3) Escherichia coli system. Diverse conditons were tested to opitimize the expression and purification of functional CdtC protein in E. coli. Results: In this study we reconstructed CdtC subunit of A. actinomycetemcomitans Y4 and comfirmed the recombinant CdtC expression by SDS-PAGE and Western Blotting. The expression level of the recombinant CdtC was about 2% of total bacterial proteins. Conclusion: The lab condition of procedure for the purification of functionally active recombinant CdtC protein is established. The active recombinant CdtC protein will serve to examine the role of CdtC proteins in the host recognition and enzyme activity of CDT and investigate the pathological process of A. actinomycetemcomitans in periodontal disease.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.122-126
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• 2010

RAD53 functions as an effector kinase of checkpoint pathways in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which plays a central role to regulate many downstream cellular processes in response to DNA damage. It also involves in transcriptional activation of various genes including RNR genes which encode the key enzyme required for dNTP synthesis. In this study, we identified CYC8 as a suppressor for the hydroxyurea sensitivity of $rad53{\Delta}$ mutation. $Rad53{\Delta}$ mutant transformed with a multi-copy plasmid containing CYC8 showed increased hydroxyurea resistance. In contrast, TUP1 which forms a complex with CYC8 did not function as a suppressor. In the case of mutations, both $cyc8{\Delta}$ and $tup1{\Delta}$ suppressed hydroxyurea sensitivity of $rad53{\Delta}$. Since CYC8 can propagate as a prion in yeast, overexpression of CYC8 induced misfolding of the normal CYC8 proteins, resulting in dominant cyc8-phenotype. Therefore, it is suggested that CYC8 can act as a multi-copy suppressor due to its prion property. It was observed that the levels of RNR transcription were increased in the yeast strains containing either multi-copies of CYC8 gene or $cyc8{\Delta}$ mutation, suggesting that the increased level of RNR will elevate the intracellular pools of dNTPs, which, in turn, suppress the phenotype of $rad53{\Delta}$ mutation.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.87-92
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• 2005

Pronase, a protease produced for commercial purpose by Streptomyces griseus, was composed of serine protease, alkaline protease, aminopeptidase and carboxypeptidase complex, and it has been widely used as anti-inflammatory drugs for human therapy. In this study, we developed a new integration vector, pHJ101 derived from pSET152, containing strong promoter, ermE, to overexpress a certain protease gene. Specific PCR primers for cloning of sprA (a gene for S. griseus protease A) and sprB (a gene for S. griseus protease B) genes were designed from the basis of nucleotide sequence in databases and amplified by PCR. Plasmid pHJ201 and pHJ202 were constructed by inserting of amplified each gene in a vector pHJ101. S. griseus HA and S. griseus HB were respectively obtained by conjugal process of a parent strain, S. griseus IFO 13350 with the recombinant Escherichia coli harboring plasmid pHJ201 or pHJ202. When protease activity was measured in flask cultivation, produced protease levels of S. griseus HA and S. griseus HB increased about 5.3 times and 5 times, respectively, more than that of parent strain. And, the constructed integrating plasmid pHJ101 was applicable for overexpression of a certain gene in Streptomyces sp.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.129-134
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• 1987

Aspergillus sp. (MK-24) producing a biological active substance that inhibited the venom proteinase activity was isolated from soil. The substance also inhibited the activity of trypsin and coagulation of blood, but did not inhibit papain, $\alpha$-chymotrypsin and pepsin. The substance was partially purified from culture filtrate by precipitaion with acetone, and by chromatography of DEAE-Sepadex A-50 column and Amberlite IRC-50 ion exchange. The inhibitory substance was stable in the wide pH range from 2.0 to 12.0 at 37$^{\circ}C$, but not stable at $65^{\circ}C$ in the alkaline pH. Only 12% of the activity was decreased by the heat treatment at 10$0^{\circ}C$ for two hours. The inhibition on venom proteinase (Agkistrodon bromohoffi brevicaudus) was a mixed type. The inhibitory activity depended on the preincubation time and completely depressed by cupric, zinc and cobalt ions. The inhibition on the venom proteinase was appeared strongly on casein but not on ovalbumin or hemoglobin as a substrate.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.29-38
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• 2016

Screen printed carbon electrodes (SPCEs) with immobilized osmium-based hydrogel redox polymer, uricase and PEGDGE can be used to apply uric acid electrochemical detecting. The osmium redox complexes were synthesized by the coordinating pyridine group having different functional group at 4-position with osmium compounds. The synthesized poly-osmium hydrogel complexes are described as PAA-PVI-$[Os(dCl-bpy)_2Cl]^{+/2+}$, PAA-PVI-$[Os(dme-bpy)_2Cl]^{+/2+}$, PAA-PVI-$[Os(dmo-bpy)_2Cl]^{+/2+}$. The different concentrations of uric acid were measured by cyclic voltammetry technique using enzyme-immobilized SPCEs. The prepared SPCEs using PAA-PVI-$[Os(dme-bpy)_2Cl]^{+/2+}$ showed no interference from common physiologic interferents such as ascorbic acid (AA) or glucose. The resulting electrical currents at 0.33 V vs. Ag/AgCl displayed a good linear response with uric acid concentrations from 1.0 to 5.0 mM. Therefore, this approach allowed the development of a simple, point of care in the medical field, disposable electrochemical uric acid biosensor.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.663-668
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• 1996

In the production of recombinant protein using E. coli, phage lysogen system can be usefully applied for simultaneously achieving protein production at high cell concentration and recovery by cell disruption in the same bioreactor. A major drawback of this system is that the intracellular product and complex broth components are mixed together in culture broth and hence purification efficiency is reduced. With the E. coli double-lysogen system, the expanded bed adsorption is very useful because the pretreatment processes in a routine bioseparation process can be done in a single column operation, and therefore may contribute towards lowering the operating cost of overall recovery/purification process. In the operation of EBA, it has been observed that the change in broth feed volume does not influence much the protein recovery in a tested range. The amount of protein adsorption per mL of resin was increased from $3.44{\times}106unit to 5.28{\times}106unit$ by doubling the column length. By two-fold increase of the column diameter, the ratio of protein concentration in eluent to that in feed was increased from 0.8 to 2.1. It is concluded from the present investigation that the increase of column length and diameter is necessary to enhance the protein adsorption amount per volume of resin and protein concentration in the eluent. The development of resins with various physical properties will be necessary for more extensive application of EBA.

• Archives of Pharmacal Research
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.581-590
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• 1998

We developed a novel water-soluble camptothecin analobue, CKD602, and evaluated the inhibition of topoisomerase I and the antitumor activities against mammalian tumor cells and human tumor xenografts. CKD602 was a nanomolar inhibitor of the topoisomerase I enzyme in the cleavable complex assay. CKD602 was found to be 3 times and slightly more potent than topotecan and camptothecin as inhibitors of topoisomerase, respecitively. In tumor cell cytotoxicity, CKD602 was more potent than topotecan in 14 out of 26 human cancer cell lines tested, while it was comparable to camptothecin. CKD602 was tested for the in vivo antitumor activity against the human tumor xenograft models. CKD602 was able to imduce regression of established HT-29, WIDR and CX-1 colon tumors, LX-1 lung tumor, MX-1 breast tumor and SKOV-3 ovarian tumor as much as 80, 94, 76, 67, 87% and 88%, respectively, with comparable body weight changes to those of topotecan. Also the therapeutic margin (R/Emax: maximum tolerance dose/$ED-{58}$) of CKD602 was significantly higher than that of topotecan by 4 times. Efficacy was determined at the maximal tolerated dose levels using schedule dependent i.p. administration in mice bearing L1210 leukemia. On a Q4dx4 (every 4 day for 4 doses) schedule, the maximum tolerated dose (MTD) was 25 mg/kg per administration, which caused great weight loss and lethality in <5% tumor bearing mouse. this schedule brought significant increase in life span (ILS), 212%, with 33% of long-term survivals. The ex vivo antitumor activity of CKD602 was compared with that of topotecan and the mean antitumor index (ATI) values recorded for CKD602 were significantly higher than that noted for topotecan. From these results, CKD602 warrants further clinical investigations as a potent inhibitor of topoisomerase I.

• The Korean Journal of Ecology
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.253-259
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• 2002

Application of phytoremediation in the polluted area to remove undesirable materials is a complex and difficult subject without detailed investigation and experimentation. We investigated the accumulation patterns of cadmium and lead in plants naturally grown, the bioavailability of plants to accumulate these toxic metals and the responses of P. thunbergii to cadmium and lead. The soil samples contained detectable lead (＜$17.5_\mu$g/g), whereas cadmium was not detected in the soils of study area. The whole body of Persicaria thunbergii contained detectable lead (＜320.$8_\mu$g/g/g) but cadmium was detected only in the stem (＜7.$4_\mu$g/g/g) and root (＜10.$4_\mu$g/g/g) of P. thunbergii. Cadmium was not detected in Trapa japonica and Nymphoides peltata, whereas lead was detected in T. japonica (＜323.$7_\mu$g/g/g) and N. peltata (＜177.$5_\mu$g/g/g). Correlation coefficient between lead content in soil and in these plant samples represented positive correlation. The total content of lead in each plant sample increased in the order of N. peltata$\leq$P. thunbergii

• Journal of Embryo Transfer
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.17-24
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• 2017

Ganglioside GD1a is specifically formed by the addition of sialic acid to ganglioside GM1a by ST3 ${\beta}$-galactoside ${\alpha}$-2,3-sialyltransferase 2 (ST3GAL2). Above all, GD1a are known to be related with the functional regulation of several growth factor receptors, including activation and dimerization of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) in tumor cells. The activity of EGF and EGFR is known to be a very important factor for meiotic and cytoplasmic maturation during in vitro maturation (IVM) of mammalian oocytes. However, the role of gangliosides GD1a for EGFR-related signaling pathways in porcine oocyte is not yet clearly understood. Here, we investigated that the effect of ST3GAL2 as synthesizing enzyme GD1a for EGFR activation and phosphorylation during meiotic maturation. To investigate the expression of ST3GAL2 according to the EGF treatment (0, 10 and 50 ng/ml), we observed the patterns of ST3GAL2 genes expression by immunofluorescence staining in denuded oocyte (DO) and cumulus cell-oocyte-complex (COC) during IVM process (22 and 44 h), respectively. Expression levels of ST3GAL2 significantly decreased (p<0.01) in an EGF concentration (10 and 50 ng/ml) dependent manner. And fluorescence expression of ST3GAL2 increased (p<0.01) in the matured COCs for 44 h. Under high EGF concentration (50 ng/ml), ST3GAL2 protein levels was decreased (p<0.01), and their shown opposite expression pattern of phosphorylation-EGFR in COCs of 44 h. Phosphorylation of EGFR significantly increased (p<0.01) in matured COCs treated with GD1a for 44 h. In addition, ST3GAL2 protein levels significantly decreased (p<0.01) in GD1a ($10{\mu}M$) treated COCs without reference to EGF pre-treatment. These results suggest that treatment of exogenous ganglioside GD1a may play an important role such as EGF in EGFR-related activation and phosphorylation in porcine oocyte maturation of in vitro.

• Journal of the Society of Cosmetic Scientists of Korea
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.11-22
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• 2020

In this study, we investigated anti-pigmentation effect of a hexapeptide. The peptide significantly reduced melanin contents and inhibited tyrosinase activity in a dose-dependent manner, in which tyrosinase is a key enzyme in melanogenesis. The peptide also significantly reduced the expression levels of tyrosinase (TYR), tyrosinase-related protein 1 (TYRP1) and their upstream transcription factor, microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (MITF). Furthermore, the peptide suppressed the phosphorylation level of cAMP-response element binding protein (CREB), a transcription factor of MITF, and increased the phosphorylation level of extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK), a kinase mediates MITF phosphorylation and proteasomal degradation. The peptide significantly inhibited the expression of Rab27A, Melanophilin, and MyosinVa, the components of motor complex involved in intracellular movement of melanosome. These results suggest that Hexapeptide could be used as an effective whitening agent that has inhibitory effect on melanin production and melanosome transport by regulating expression and degradation of MITF in melanocytes.