• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.57 no.5
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• pp.489-497
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• 2019

Cystic echinococcosis (CE), a zoonotic disease caused by Echinococcus granulosus at the larval stage, predominantly develops in the liver and lungs of intermediate hosts and eventually results in organ malfunction or even death. The interaction between E. granulosus and human body is incompletely understood. Exosomes are nanosized particles ubiquitously present in human body fluids. Exosomes carry biomolecules that facilitate communication between cells. To the best of our knowledge, the role of exosomes in patients with CE is not reported. Here, we isolated exosomes from the sera of patients with CE (CE-exo) and healthy donors and subjected them to liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry analysis. Proteomic analysis identified 49 proteins specifically expressed in CE-exo, including 4 proteins of parasitic origin. The most valuable parasitic proteins included tubulin alpha-1C chain and histone H4. And 8 proteins were differentially regulated in CE-exo (fold change>1.5), as analyzed with bioinformatic methods such as annotation and functional enrichment analyses. These findings may improve our understanding about the interaction between E. granulosus and human body, and may contribute to the diagnosis and prevention of CE.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• v.65 no.3
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• pp.679-682
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• 2023

The Lactococcus taiwanensis strain K_LL004 was isolated from the gut of a grasshopper (Oxya chinensis sinuosa) collected from local farm in Korea. L. taiwanensis strain K_LL004 is the functional probiotic candidate with an ability to hydrolyse plant polysaccharides. The complete genome of the L. taiwanensis strain K_LL004 contains one circular chromosome (1,995,099 bp) with a guanine + cytosine (GC) content of 38.8%. Moreover, 1,929 Protein-coding sequence, 19 rRNA genes, and 62 tRNA genes were identified based on results of annotation. L. taiwanensis strain K_LL004 has a gene, which encodes hydrolytic enzymes such as beta-glucosidase and beta-xylosidase, that hydrolyzes plant polysaccharides.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• v.65 no.5
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• pp.1105-1109
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• 2023

Pedi coccus acidilactici CACC 537 was isolated from canine feces and reported to have probiotic properties. We aimed to characterize the potential probiotic properties of this strain by functional genomic analysis. Complete genome sequencing of P. acidilactici CACC 537 was performed using a PacBio RSII and Illumina platform, and contained one circular chromosome (2.0 Mb) with a 42% G + C content. The sequences were annotation revealed 1,897 protein-coding sequences, 15 rRNAs, and 56 tRNAs. It was determined that P. acidilactici CACC 537 genome carries genes known to be involved in the immune system, defense mechanisms, restriction-modification (R-M), and the CRISPR system. CACC 537 was shown to be beneficial in preventing pathogen infection during the fermentation process, help host immunity, and maintain intestinal health. These results provide for a comprehensive understanding of P. acidilactici and the development of industrial probiotic feed additives that can help improve host immunity and intestinal health.

• Journal of Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.58 no.4
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• pp.355-361
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• 2015

The rice protein profiles of Oryza sativa L (Koshihikari) grown under organic and conventional cultivation regimes were compared on 2-D gels to develop diagnostic marker proteins for organic rice. The selected proteins, differentially expressed between organic and conventional rice, were compared with the differentially expressed proteins of another organic and conventional rice pairing, produced at a different location. In the first comparison among conventional, no-chemical, and organic rice grown in the same region, Korea, 13 proteins exhibiting differential expression in organic and conventionally grown plants were selected. Eight of the 13 proteins were down-regulated, and the 5 remaining proteins were up-regulated from conventional to organic rice. The second comparison pairing from Kyungju, revealed 12 differentially expressed proteins, with 8 down-regulated and 4 up-regulated proteins. Ten of the differentially expressed proteins that overlapped between the two comparison sets could not be clustered into any functional group using a functional annotation clustering tool. Further comparisons using another set of conventional and organic rice, belonging to a different variety of Oryza sativa L and produced in Sanchung, revealed 8 differentially expressed proteins, 5 of which were down-regulated and 3 of which were upregulated in the organic rice. Overall, 3 differentially expressed proteins were commonly found in all three organic rice crops. These 3 proteins, along with other overlapping differentially expressed proteins, can provide a good starting point for the development of signature proteins that can be used for the authentication of organic rice with a follow-up studies with more comparison sets.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.12
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• pp.7221-7227
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• 2013

Background: Fascin, an actin-bundling protein forming actin bundles including filopodia and stress fibers, is overexpressed in multiple human epithelial cancers including esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). Previously we conducted a microarray experiment to analyze fascin knockdown by RNAi in ESCC. Method: In this study, the differentially expressed genes from mRNA expression profilomg of fascin knockdown were analyzed by multiple bioinformatics methods for a comprehensive understanding of the role of fascin. Results: Gene Ontology enrichment found terms associated with cytoskeleton organization, including cell adhesion, actin filament binding and actin cytoskeleton, which might be related to fascin function. Except GO categories, the differentially expressed genes were annotated by 45 functional categories from the Functional Annotation Chart of DAVID. Subpathway analysis showed thirty-nine pathways were disturbed by the differentially expressed genes, providing more detailed information than traditional pathway enrichment analysis. Two subpathways derivated from regulation of the actin cytoskeleton were shown. Promoter analysis results indicated distinguishing sequence patterns and transcription factors in response to the co-expression of downregulated or upregulated differentially expressed genes. MNB1A, c-ETS, GATA2 and Prrx2 potentially regulate the transcription of the downregulated gene set, while Arnt-Ahr, ZNF42, Ubx and TCF11-MafG might co-regulate the upregulated genes. Conclusions: This multiple bioinformatic analysis helps provide a comprehensive understanding of the roles of fascin after its knockdown in ESCC.

• BMB Reports
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• v.42 no.6
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• pp.315-323
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• 2009

In order to elucidate ultimate biological function of the genome, the model animal system carrying mutations is indispensable. Recently, large-scale mutagenesis projects have been launched in various species. Especially, the mouse is considered to be an ideal model to human because it is a mammalian species accompanied with well-established genetic as well as embryonic technologies. In 1990', large-scale mouse mutagenesis projects firstly initiated with a potent chemical mutagen, N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea (ENU) by the phenotype-driven approach or forward genetics. The knockout mouse mutagenesis projects with trapping/conditional mutagenesis have then followed as Phase II since 2006 by the gene-driven approach or reverse genetics. Recently, the next-generation gene targeting system has also become available to the research community, which allows us to establish and analyze mutant mice carrying an allelic series of base substitutions in target genes as another reverse genetics. Overall trends in the large-scale mouse mutagenesis will be reviewed in this article particularly focusing on the new advancement of the next-generation gene targeting system. The drastic expansion of the mutant mouse resources altogether will enhance the systematic understanding of the life. The construction of the mutant mouse resources developed by the forward and reverse genetic mutagenesis is just the beginning of the annotation of mammalian genome. They provide basic infrastructure to understand the molecular mechanism of the gene and genome and will contribute to not only basic researches but also applied sciences such as human disease modelling, genomic medicine and personalized medicine.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.525-530
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• 2013

The ascarids, Toxocara canis and Toxascaris leonina, are probably the most common gastrointestinal helminths encountered in dogs. In order to understand biological differences of 2 ascarids, we analyzed gene expression profiles of female adults of T. canis and T. leonina using CLC Genomics Workbench, and the results were compared with those of free-living nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. A total of 2,880 and 7,949 ESTs were collected from T. leonina and T. canis, respectively. The length of ESTs ranged from 106 to 4,637 bp with an average insert size of 820 bp. Overall, our results showed that most functional gene annotations of 2 ascarids were quite similar to each other in 3 major categories, i.e., cellular component, biological process, and molecular function. Although some different transcript expression categories were found, the distance was short and it was not enough to explain their different lifestyles. However, we found distinguished transcript differences between ascarid parasites and free-living nematodes. Understanding evolutionary genetic changes might be helpful for studies of the lifestyle and evolution of parasites.

• Proceedings of the Korea Society of Poultry Science Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.53-59
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• 2005

Sequences of candidate chicken testis-specific genes were analyzed in order to develop a resource for functional genomic studies of the testis and male germ cells. Tentative consensus sequences (TCs) containing ESTs expressed in testis libraries only were selected from the TIGR Gallus gallus Gene Index, resulting in a total of 292 TCs. The transcriptional expression of these genes were evaluated in a variety of chicken tissues, including testis and ovary, Of the panel of 292 TCs, 110 were expressed in a testis-specific manner. The correlation between the number of ESTs assembled into each TC and the number of testis-specific TCs was not significant. Annotation of the TCs using the Gene Ontology database terms showed that the proportion of testis-specific TCs that were classified as having catalytic activity (within the Molecular Function branch) was larger than the proportion of total chicken TCs classified in the same way. Our results might facilitate the investigation of testis-specific genes and their functional analysis in the chicken as well as in other avian species.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.209-217
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• 2020

The presence of high amounts of seed storage proteins (SSPs) improves the overall quality of soybean seeds. However, these SSPs pose a major limitation due to their high abundance in soybean seeds. Although various technical advancements including mass-spectrometry and bioinformatics resources were reported, only limited information has been derived to date on soybean seeds at proteome level. Here, we applied a tandem mass tags (TMT)-based quantitative proteomic analysis to identify the significantly modulated proteins in the seeds of two soybean cultivars showing varying protein contents. This approach led to the identification of 5,678 proteins of which 13 and 1,133 proteins showed significant changes in Daewon (low-protein content cultivar) and Saedanbaek (high-protein content cultivar) respectively. Functional annotation revealed that proteins with increased abundance in Saedanbaek were mainly associated with the amino acid and protein metabolism involved in protein synthesis, folding, targeting, and degradation. Taken together, the results presented here provide a pipeline for soybean seed proteome analysis and contribute a better understanding of proteomic changes that may lead to alteration in the protein contents in soybean seeds.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.24
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• pp.10797-10801
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• 2015

Background: To explore the molecular mechanisms of metastatic osteosarcoma (OS) by using the microarray expression profiles of metastatic and non-metastatic OS samples. Materials and Methods: The gene expression profile GSE37552 was downloaded from Gene Expression Omnibus database, including 2 human metastatic OS cell line models and 2 two non-metastatic OS cell line models. The differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified by Multtest package in R language. In addition, functional enrichment analysis of the DEGs was performed by WebGestalt, and the protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks were constructed by Hitpredict, then the signal pathways of the genes involved in the networks were performed by Kyoto Encyclopaedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) automatic annotation server (KAAS). Results: A total of 237 genes were classified as DEGs in metastatic OS. The most significant up- and down-regulated genes were A2M (alpha-2-macroglobulin) and BCAN (brevican). The DEGs were significantly related to the response to hormone stimulus, and the PPI network of A2M contained IL1B (interleukin), LRP1 (low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein 1) and PDGF (platelet-derived growth factor). Furthermore, the MAPK signaling pathway and focal adhesion were significantly enriched. Conclusions: A2M and its interactive proteins, such as IL1B, LRP1 and PDGF may be candidate target molecules to monitor, diagnose and treat metastatic OS. The response to hormone stimulus, MAPK signaling pathway and focal adhesion may play important roles in metastatic OS.