• Journal of mucopolysaccharidosis and rare diseases
• /
• v.4 no.1
• /
• pp.26-36
• /
• 2018

Mucopolysaccharidosis IIIA is a heritable neurodegenerative disorder resulting from the dysfunction of the lysosomal hydrolase sulphamidase. This leads to the primary accumulation of the complex carbohydrate heparan sulphate in a wide range of tissues and CNS degeneration. Characterization of animal model is the beginning point of the therapeutic clinical trial. Mouse model has a limitation in that it is not a human and does not have all of the disease phenotypes. Therefore, delineate of the phenotypic characteristics of MPS IIIA mouse model prerequisite for the enzyme replace treatment for the diseases. We designed 6-month duration of phenotypic characterization of MPS IIIA mouse biochemically, behaviorally and histologically. We compared height and weight of MPS IIIA mouse with wild type from 4 weeks to 6 months in both male and female. At 6 months, we measured GAG storage in urine kidney, heart, liver, lung and spleen. The brain GAG storage is presented with Alcian blue staining, immunohistochemistry, and electron-microscopy. The neurologic phenotype is evaluated by brain MRI and behavioral study including open field test, fear conditioning, T-maze test and Y-maze test. Especially behavioral tests were done serially at 4month and 6month. This study will show the result of the MPS IIIA mouse model phenotypic characterization. The MPS IIIA mouse provides an excellent model for evaluating pathogenic mechanisms of disease and for testing treatment strategies, including enzyme or cell replacement and gene therapy.

• Journal of mucopolysaccharidosis and rare diseases
• /
• v.2 no.1
• /
• pp.19-22
• /
• 2016

Purpose: Mucolipidosis type II (ML II), also known as I-cell disease is an autosomal recessive inherited disorder of lysosomal enzyme transport caused by a deficiency of the uridine diphosphate (UDP)-N-acetylglucosamine:lysosomal enzyme N-acetylglucosamine-1-phosphotransferase (GlcNAc-phosphotransferase). Clinical manifestations are skeletal abnormalities, mental retardation, cardiac disease, and respiratory complications. A severely and rapidity progressive clinical course leads to death before 10 years of age. Methods/Results: In this study we diagnosed three cases of prenatal ML II in two different at-risk families. We compared two procedures -biochemical analysis and molecular analysis - for the prenatal diagnosis of ML II. Both methods require an invasive procedure to obtain specimens for the diagnosis. Biochemical analysis requires obtaining cell cultures from amniotic fluid for more than two weeks, and would result in a late diagnosis at 19 to 22 weeks of gestation. Molecular genetic testing by direct sequence analysis is usually possible when mutations are confirmed in the proband. Molecular analysis has an advantage in that it can be performed during the first-trimester. Conclusion: Molecular diagnosis is a preferable method when a prompt decision is necessary.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
• /
• v.51 no.12
• /
• pp.1350-1354
• /
• 2008

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is an autosomal recessive disease characterized by diffuse proximal and distal weakness due to deletion of the survival motor neuron (SMN) gene localized on chromosome 5 (5q11.2-13.3). SMA has been considered as a pure lower motor neuron disorder, and a definitive diagnosis can be established by molecular genetic testing. Here, we describe two patients with severe hypotonia and frequent aspirations at early infancy. Nerve conduction studies showed more extensive sensory involvement in these patients diagnosed to have SMA by genetic study than in classical cases of SMA. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of SMA Type 1 with sensory nerve involvement in Korea.

• The Korean Journal of Applied Statistics
• /
• v.21 no.6
• /
• pp.933-945
• /
• 2008

The genetic association test on age of onset trait aims to detect the putative gene by means of linear rank tests for a significant trend of onset distributions with genotypes. However, due to the selective sampling of recruiting subjects with ages less than a pre-specified limit, the genotype groups are subject to substantially different censored distributions and thus this is one reason for the low efficiencies in the linear rank tests. In testing the equality of two survival distributions, log-rank statistic is preferred to the Wilcoxon statistic, when censored observations are nonignorable. Therefore, for more then two groups, we propose a generalized log-rank test for trend as a genetic association test. Monte Carlo studies are conducted to investigate the performances of the test statistics examined in this paper.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
• /
• v.48 no.3
• /
• pp.247-251
• /
• 2010

Feline intestinal tritrichomoniasis by Tritrichomonas foetus was first recognized in USA in 1999 and has so far been reported from UK, Norway, Switzerland, and Australia, but not from the Far East Asian countries. In November 2008, 2 female and male littermate Siamese cats, 6-month old, raised in a household in Korea were referred from a local veterinary clinic with a history of chronic persistent diarrhea. A direct smear examination of fecal specimens revealed numerous trichomonad trophozoites which were isolated by the fecal culture in $InPouch^{TM}$ TF-Feline medium. A PCR testing of the isolate based on the amplification of a conserved portion of the T. foetus internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions (ITS1 and ITS2) and the 5.8S rRNA gene, and the molecular sequencing of the PCR amplicons confirmed infection with T. foetus. This is the first clinical case of feline intestinal trichomoniasis caused by T. foetus in Korea.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Inherited Metabolic disease
• /
• v.12 no.2
• /
• pp.104-107
• /
• 2012

Alpha-methylacetoacetic aciduria is a rare inborn metabolic disorder, caused by acetyl-CoA acetyltransferase-1 deficiency. This enzyme acts on the last step of isoleucine metabolism. It dissociates 2-Methyl-3-Hydroxybutyryl-CoA into propionyl-CoA and acetyl-CoA. ACAT1 is the causative gene. Most patients manifest recurrent ketotic metabolic acidosis, but some patients can be identified in their presymptomatic period by newborn screening. Urinary organic acid profile is characterized by increased amounts of 2-Methyl-3-Hydroxybutyric acid, tiglylglycine, and 2-methyl acetoacetic acid. In this report, a Korean patient with alpha-methylacetoacetic aciduria is described. This is the first Korean case report confirmed by genetic testing.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.20 no.12
• /
• pp.1724-1734
• /
• 2010

A phosphate-solubilizing bacterial strain isolated from Hippophae rhamnoides rhizosphere was identified as Rahnella sp. based on its phenotypic features and 16S rRNA gene sequence. The bacterial strain showed the growth characteristics of a cold-adapted psychrotroph, with the multiple plant growth-promoting traits of inorganic and organic phosphate solubilization, 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate-deaminase activity, ammonia generation, and siderophore production. The strain also produced indole-3-acetic acid, indole-3-acetaldehyde, indole-3-acetamide, indole-3-acetonitrile, indole-3-lactic acid, and indole-3-pyruvic acid in tryptophan-supplemented nutrient broth. Gluconic, citric and isocitric acids were the major organic acids detected during tricalcium phosphate solubilization. A rifampicin-resistant mutant of the strain exhibited high rhizosphere competence without disturbance to the resident microbial populations in pea rhizosphere. Seed bacterization with a charcoal-based inoculum significantly increased growth in barley, chickpea, pea, and maize under the controlled environment. Microplot testing of the inoculum at two different locations in pea also showed significant increase in growth and yield. The attributes of cold-tolerance, high rhizosphere competence, and broad-spectrum plant growth-promoting activity exhibited the potential of Rahnella sp. BIHB 783 for increasing agriculture productivity.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Service
• /
• v.34 no.3
• /
• pp.265-271
• /
• 2011

Lymphoma is the most common hematopoietic malignancy in dogs. Diagnosis of lymphoma is classically performed by morphological assessment and immunohistochemistry. But some cases in the early stage are difficult to distinguish and need more objective and accurate methods. So, Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for antigen receptor rearrangements (PARR) and flow cytometric immunophenotype of lymphoma have been developed continuously. In this study, we performed these two methods to classify lymphoma type in 3 cases. According to PARR analysis, B cell origin lymphoma was diagnosed in two of three cases by testing PBMC and lymph node. All fine needle aspiration (FNA) samples of lymph nodes had high expression of CD21 on >88% of total cell population and PBMC samples also showed high expression of CD21 on >30% of total lymphocytes in those two cases, while the expression of CD3, CD4 and CD8 was absent. These results suggest that concurrent use of PARR and flow cytometric immunophenotype is more effective and valuable tool for the diagnosis and monitoring of canine lymphoma patients.

• Genomics & Informatics
• /
• v.12 no.2
• /
• pp.58-63
• /
• 2014

The tyrosine-protein kinase Tec (TEC) is a member of non-receptor tyrosine kinases and has critical roles in cell signaling transmission, calcium mobilization, gene expression, and transformation. TEC is also involved in various immune responses, such as mast cell activation. Therefore, we hypothesized that TEC polymorphisms might be involved in aspirin-exacerbated respiratory disease (AERD) pathogenesis. We genotyped 38 TEC single nucleotide polymorphisms in a total of 592 subjects, which comprised 163 AERD cases and 429 aspirin-tolerant asthma controls. Logistic regression analysis was performed to examine the associations between TEC polymorphisms and the risk of AERD in a Korean population. The results revealed that TEC polymorphisms and major haplotypes were not associated with the risk of AERD. In another regression analysis for the fall rate of forced expiratory volume in 1 second ($FEV_1$) by aspirin provocation, two variations (rs7664091 and rs12500534) and one haplotype (TEC_BL2_ht4) showed nominal associations with $FEV_1$ decline (p=0.03-0.04). However, the association signals were not retained after performing corrections for multiple testing. Despite TEC playing an important role in immune responses, the results from the present study suggest that TEC polymorphisms do not affect AERD susceptibility. Findings from the present study might contribute to the genetic etiology of AERD pathogenesis.

• Interdisciplinary Bio Central
• /
• v.3 no.4
• /
• pp.14.1-14.9
• /
• 2011

Protein homology detection is an important issue in comparative genomics. Because of the exponential growth of sequence databases, fast and efficient homology detection tools are urgently needed. Currently, for homology detection, sequence comparison methods using local alignment such as BLAST are generally used as they give a reasonable measure for sequence similarity. However, these methods have drawbacks in offering overall sequence similarity, especially in dealing with eukaryotic genomes that often contain many insertions and duplications on sequences. Also these methods do not provide the explicit models for speciation, thus it is difficult to interpret their similarity measure into homology detection. Here, we present a novel method based on Word Conservation Score (WCS) to address the current limitations of homology detection. Instead of counting each amino acid, we adopted the concept of 'Word' to compare sequences. WCS measures overall sequence similarity by comparing word contents, which is much faster than BLAST comparisons. Furthermore, evolutionary distance between homologous sequences could be measured by WCS. Therefore, we expect that sequence comparison with WCS is useful for the multiple-species-comparisons of large genomes. In the performance comparisons on protein structural classifications, our method showed a considerable improvement over BLAST. Our method found bigger micro-syntenic blocks which consist of orthologs with conserved gene order. By testing on various datasets, we showed that WCS gives faster and better overall similarity measure compared to BLAST.