• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.348-353
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• 2003

Generally, two different types of fructose polymer are found in nature. One is inulin, whose fructosyl residues are linked mainly by a ${\beta}-(2,1)-linkage$, while the other is high-molecular-weight levan, whose fructosyl residues are linked mainly by a ${\beta}-(2,6)-linkage$. In contrast to the extensive studies on the prebiotic properties of inulin, there has been no report on the effect of levan on the large bowel microflora in viva. Therefore, to examine whether dietary levan can be used as a prebiotic, Sprague-Dawley male rats were fed one of two diets for 3 weeks: 1) basal diet plus sucrose; 2) basal diet plus 10% (wt/wt) levan. The cecal bowel mass, cecal and colon short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), pH, and microflora were then compared. The intake of the levan-containing diet significantly increased the total cecal weight and wall weight. The analyses of the SCFAs in the cecal and colonic contents revealed that levan was converted into acetate, butyrate, and lactate, which resulted in acidic conditions. The intake of levan also significantly increased the total number of microorganisms by 5-fold and lactic acid-producing bacteria (LAB) 30-fold in the feces. Accordingly, the current work shows that levan can be used as a prebiotic for stimulating the growth of LAB in an animal model.

• Reproductive and Developmental Biology
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.69-73
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• 2005

The hematopoietic growth factor erythropoietin (EPO) is required for the maintenance, proliferation, and differentiation of the stem cells that produce erythrocytes. To analyse the biological activity of the recombinant human EPO (rec-hEPO), we have cloned the EPO cDNA and genomic DNA and produced rec-hEPO in the CHO cell lines. The growth and differentiation of EPO-dependent human leukemic cell line (F36E) were used to measure cytokine dependency and in vitro bioactivity of rec-hEPO. MIT assay values were increased by survival of F36E cells at 24h or 72h. The hematocrit and RBC values were increased by subcutaneous injection of 20 IU (in mice) and 100IU(in rats) rec-hEPO. Hematocrit values remarkably increased at $13.2\%$ (in mice) and $12.2\%$ (in rats). The pharmacokinetic behavior with injection of 6 IU of rec-hEPO remained detectable after 24 h in all mice tested. The highest peat appeared at 2h after injection. The long half-life of rec-hEPO is likely to confer clinical advantages by allowing less frequent dosing in patients treated for anemia. These data demonstratethat ree-hEPO produced in this study has a potent activity in vivo and in vitro. The results also suggest that biological activity of ree-hEPO could be remarkably enhanced by genetic engineering that affects the potential activity, including mutants with added oligosaccharide chain and designed to produce EPO-EPO fusion protein.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.89-98
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• 2020

Purpose: The growth of online commerce is now becoming a major threat and a new opportunity for retailers. Existing offline retailers struggle to cope with new online retailers' threats by utilizing offline infrastructure. Besides, online retailers expand their online strengths to offline sales by opening their offline stores. Many retailers are paying close attention to the O2O business and the resulting changes. Thus, this research focuses on the O2O business model and process that retailers can adopt. Research design, data and methodology: Considering the features of products that retailers sell, this paper divides O2O business process with the following criteria: delivery lead-time and delivery area. And This research uses the business model canvas to define the features of O2O commerce business process. This paper also uses nine key elements in the business model canvas for analyzing the structure of O2O commerce business. Results: This paper suggests the delivery model of retailers respond to offline customer orders and summarizes the following results. (1) Considering characteristics such as logistics process, delivery area, and product type, we define the features of O2O business models: wide-area (warehouse) based O2O business model, regional area (store) based O2O business model and time-separated O2O business model. (2) This study checks the availability of the business model through the business cases of O2O business models. (3) This study also analyzes the O2O business model of domestic retail companies by the factors defined in the business model canvas. Conclusions: Retailers can adopt the O2O business process to fit their business requirements and strategy. The online retailers who deal with normal consumer products mainly have the wide-area based O2O business model. The wide-area based O2O business model can be suitable for retailers who manage inventory centrally. The time-separated O2O business model can be a good solution for fresh food retailers to operate the logistics process efficiently. And to shorten the delivery lead-time of fresh foods, the regional area based O2O business model can be fit to the retailer that utilizes its offline logistics or sales infrastructure. It may be much more important for retailers to share the inventory information with other branches and to change the role of offline stores.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.44 no.6
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• pp.833-842
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• 2020

Background: Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a commonly encountered large intestine disease in the contemporary world that terminates into colorectal cancer; therefore, the timely treatment of UC is of major concern. Panax ginseng Meyer is an extensively consumed herbal commodity in South East Asian countries, especially Korea. It exhibits a wide range of biologically beneficial qualities for almost head-to-toe ailments in the body. Epimedium koreanum Nakai (EKN) is also a widely used traditional Korean herbal medicine used for treating infertility, rheumatism, and cardiovascular diseases. Materials and methods: Separately the anti-inflammatory activities of both red ginseng extracts (RGEs) and EKNs had been demonstrated in the past in various inflammatory models; however, we sought to unravel the anti-inflammatory activities of the combination of these two extracts in dextran sulfate sodium (DSS)-induced ulcerative colitis in mice model because the allopathic remedies for UC involve more side effects than benefits. Results: Our results have shown that the combination of RGE + EKN synergistically alleviated the macroscopic lesions in DSS-induced colitic mice such as colon shortening, hematochezia, and weight loss. Moreover, it restored the histopathological lesions in mice and decreased the levels of proinflammatory mediators and cytokines through the repression of nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NF-κB) and nucleotide-binding domain (NOD)-like receptor protein 3 (NLRP-3) expression. In vitro, this combination also reduced the magnitude of nitric acid (NO), proinflammatory mediators and cytokine through NF-κB and mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathways in RAW 264.7 mouse macrophage cells. Conclusion: In the light of these findings, we can endorse this combination extract as a functional food for the prophylactic as well as therapeutic treatment of UC in humans together with allopathic remedies.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.107-114
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• 2007

This study aimed to investigate the hexachlorobenzene (HCB) dechlorinating ability of sediment microbes collected from a natural canal receiving secondary effluents from an industrial estate and nearby factories. Nine sites along the stream and one in the estuary in the Gulf of Thailand into which the canal spills were specified and sampling for sediment and water. Preliminary analysis of the sediments showed that the first four sites nearest to the discharging location were contaminated by HCB within the range of 0.18 to 1.25 ppm. Apart from that, 1,3,5-trichlorobenzene which has never been commercially produced or used in any manufacturing processes except for the transformation from higher chlorinated benzene was also identified in the range of 0.16 to 0.24 ppm. This suggested a possibility of sporadically HCB contamination in this stream. Of more important, people in the community along this canal earn their living by coastal fishery; hence, posing a risk of spreading HCB and its less chlorinated congeners via food chain from caught marine creatures to human. As a result, there is an urgent need to understand the behavior of HCB dechlorination in this stream sediment which can lead to a clean-up action in the future. Serum bottles with sediment slurries (sediment to water ratio of 1:1 (v/v) and filtered to remove particles larger than 0.7 mm) from each site were inoculated with 2 mg/l of HCB, kept anaerobically in the dark at room temperature without any nourishment, and analyzed for HCB and its less-chlorinated congeners every 6 days. Total chemical oxygen demand, suspended solids, and volatile suspended solids were in the range of 21,492-73,584, 158,100-518,100 and 6,000-32,700 mg/l, respectively. It was found that all sediment slurries began to dechlorinate HCB in 12 to 30 days and the HCB was completely removed within 42 to 60 days or so. On the other hand, there was no HCB dechlorination occurred in the controlled set which was sterilized by autoclaving prior to the addition of HCB. This implies that the HCB transformation was solely due to microorganisms' activities. HCB was dechlorinated principally via pentachlolobenzene to 1,2,3,5-tetrachlorobenzene and terminated at 1,3,5-trichlorobenzene which is the major pathway as reported by many researchers. Dichlorobenzene has not been detected in any samples within the dechlorination period of 60 days. The results indicate that the microbial matrix in the sediment of this stream has an outstanding capability to dechlorinate HCB. Existing substrates and nutrients which mainly sorbed onto the solid phase and the typical temperature in Thailand were sufficient and suitable to promote the activities of these HCB-dechlorinating microbes.

• Korean Journal of Medicinal Crop Science
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.339-345
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• 2007

Field performance and morphological characterization was conducted on seven transgenic lines of Codonopsis lanceolata expressing ${\gamma}-TMT$ gene. The shoots were obtained from leaf explants after co-cultivation with Agrobacterium tume-faciens strain LBA 4404 harboring a binary vector pYBI 121 that carried genes encoding ${\gamma}-Tocopherol$ methyltransferase gene (${\gamma}-TMT$) and a neomycin phosphotransferase II gene (npt II) for kanamycin resistance. The transgenic plants were transferred to a green house for acclimation. Integration of T-DNA into the $T_0\;and\;T_1$ generation of transgenic Codonopsis lanceolata genome was confirmed by the polymerase chain reaction and southern blot analysis. The progenies of transgenic plants showed phenotypic differences within the different lines and with relative to control plants. When grown in field, the transgenic plants in general exhibited increased fertility, significant improvement in the shoot weight, root weight, shoot height and rachis length with relation to the control plants. However, all seven independently derived transgenic lines produced normal flower with respect to its shape, size, color and seeds number at its maturity. Indicating that the addition of a selectable marker gene in the plant genome does not effect on seed germination and agronomic performance of transgenic Codonopsis lanceolata. $T_1$ progenies of these plants were obtained and evaluated together with control plant in a field experiment. Overall, the agronomic performance of $T_1$ progenies of transgenic Codonopsis lanceolata showed superior to that of the seed derived non-transgenic plant. In this study, we report on the morphological variation and agronomic performance of transgenic Codonopsis lanceolata developed by Agrobacterium transformation.

• Korean journal of applied entomology
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• v.45 no.1 s.142
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• pp.31-36
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• 2006

Inflammation in the brain has known to be associated with the development of a various neurologiacal diseases. The hallmark of neuro-inflammation is the activation of microglia, brain macrophage. Pro-inflammatory compounds including nitric oxide(NO) are the main cause of neuro-degenerative disease such as Alzheimer's disease. In the study, we examined whether Harmonia axyridis extracts inhibit the NO production by a direct method using Griess reagent, western blotting and by RT-PCR(Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reactionin) the gene expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase(iNOS). Distilled water$(H_2O)$ and methanol(MeOH) extracts of H. axyridis inhibited the protein expression of TNF-a(Tumor Necrosis Factor) and IL-6(Interleukin) in LPS (Lipopolysaccharide) stimulated BV-2 cells at the concentration of 100 ng/ml. Incubation of BV-2 cells with the extracts of $H_2O$ of MeOH inhibited the LPS induced NO and iNOS protein. And this inhibition of iNOS protein is concordant with the inhibition of iNOS mRNA expression. These data suggested that H. axyridis extracts may play a crucial role in inhibiting the NO production.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.36 no.6
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• pp.815-833
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• 2016

This study investigated children's (grade 3 to 9) responses to assessment items on energy as a cross-cutting concept in order to get basic information for a learning progression. The assessment consisted of 8 ordered multiple-choice items at the contexts of electric circuit, mechanical energy of falling objects, phase change of matter, dissolution, biological phenomena of a lizard, food chain, radiative equilibrium between Sun and Earth, and the system of water cycling. Children's responses to each item were analyzed with using cross-tabulations in terms of grades and item option levels and Wright map and Differential item functioning based on Rasch modeled item response analysis. The results offered empirical evidence of children's development of understanding energy from relation between energy and its phenomena, types of energy, transfer and conversion of energy, towards conservation and equilibrium of energy for all of eight contexts. Children of each grade did not fully understand energy conservation. As grade goes up, their understandings of energy transfer and conversion were differentiated across the contexts and topics of energy. According to Rasch analysis, children had easier understanding of energy on dissolution and poorer understanding of energy on water cycling than that on other contexts. It was discussed and suggested that the results of this study help us organize science topics with regard to energy when developing new national science curriculum.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Applied Pharmacology
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• 2001.11a
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• pp.102-102
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• 2001

Taurine (2-ethaneaminosulfonic acid) is one of the major intracellular ${\beta}$ -amino acids in mammals and is required for a number of biological processes including membrane stabilization, osmoregulation, antioxidation, detoxification, modulation of calcium flux and neurornodulation. The taurine transporter (TAUT) which contains 12 hydrophobic membrane-spanning domains has been cloned from dog kidney, rat brain, mouse brain, human thyroid, placenta and retina. In this study, The TAUT cDNA from the human intestinal epithelial cell, HT-29 was cloned and sequenced. Reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was performed to amplify partial cDNA encoding human intestinal TAUT. The coding region of the PCR product was 732 bp long. The primers were designed to encode highly conserved amino acid sequences near the transmembrane domains III (IPYFIFLF) and Ⅵ (KYKYNSYR) both in human and mouse. The TAUT cDNA amplified was ligated into the pGEX 4T-1 expression vector. The resulting sequence of human intestinal TAUT cDNA (Accession number of NCBI Genebank is AF346763) was identical to the sequences of the TAUTs previously determined in the human placenta and retina except 3 base pairs from that of the reported human thyroid. TAUT specific antibodies were generated to use them as biological tools in the studies of the biological role of TAUT. Peptides of 149-162 amino acid residue (14 amino acids) of the TAUT were synthesized. The synthetic peptide used in this study was LFQSFQKELPWAHC. This region was chosen not only to avoid putative glycosylation sites but also to exclude regions of known homology with GABA transporters in the extracellular hydrophilic domains. The synthetic peptide, TAUT-1 was conjugated with carrier protein, kehole lympet hemocyanin (KLH) to use as an antigen. When used for immunization on a rabbit to produce polyclonal antiserum, the conjugates elicited high -titered specific anti-TAUT-1 antibodies, which reacted well with the ovalbumin (OVA) conjugated peptides in ELISA. The KLH-conjugated peptide was also used as immunizing antigen in BALB/c mice to produce TAUT specific monoclonal antibodies. From the culture supernatant of the hybridoma, the specificity of anti-TAUT-1 monoclonal antibodies was confirmed by ELISA. Further applications of more tools in TAUT expression analysis will be performed such as western blotting and flow cytometry.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.726-737
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• 2017

Carotenoids are isoprenoids with a long polyene chain containing 3 to 15 conjugated double bonds, which determines their absorption spectrum. They typically consist of a $C_{40}$ hydrocarbon backbone often modified by different oxygen-containing functional groups, to yield cyclic or acyclic xanthophylls. Much work has also been focused on the identification, production, and utilization of natural sources of carotenoid (plants, microorganisms and crustacean by-products) as an alternative to the synthetic pigment which currently covers most of the world markets. Nevertheless, only a few carotenoids (${\beta}-carotene$, lycopene, astaxanthin, canthaxanthin, and lutein) can be produced commercially by fermentation or isolation from the small number of abundant natural sources. The market and demand for carotenoids is anticipated to increase dramatically with the discovery that carotenoids exhibit significant anti-carcinogenic activities and play an important role in the prevention of chronic diseases. The increasing importance of carotenoids in the feed, nutraceutical food and pharmaceutical markets has renewed by efforts to find ways of producing additional carotenoid structures in useful quantities. Because microorganisms and plants synthesize hundreds of different complex chemical carotenoid structures and a number of carotenoid biosynthetic pathways have been elucidated on a molecular level, metabolic and genetic engineering of microorganisms can provide a means towards economic production of carotenoid structures that are otherwise inaccessible. The aim of this article is to review our current understanding of carotenoid formation, to explain the perceived benefits of carotenoid in the diet and review the efforts that have been made to increase carotenoid in certain microorganisms.