• Korean Journal of Medicinal Crop Science
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.376-382
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• 2019

Background: Angelica gigas Nakai has been used as an herbal medicine in Eastern Asia for treating disorders in women for a long time. To date there are no studies on the genetic diversity of A. gigas. The present study aimed to study the genetic diversity of A. gigas variants using genome-wide simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. Methods and Results: The genetic diversity of 199 variants of A. gigas cultivated in of different regions, was analyzed using 5 genome-wide SSR markers. The results revealed that the genetic variants were very diverse, and genetic analysis using the 5 SSR markers revealed high diversity among the variants. Conclusions: It is expected that the development of the true Angleical cultivar, by studying the system and group selection, can be achieved by genetic analysis using the developed markers, for generating a genetically fixed lineage and group selection.

• Korean Journal of Plant Resources
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.541-549
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• 2010

The present study researched morphological characteristics and analyzed the genetic diversity by using RAPD in Calanthe species, native plant in Jeju, Korea. Twenty-six samples were selected by flower color, and 19 horticultural traits were investigated to study morphological characteristics. The C. discolor had the smallest leaf, the length and width of dorsal sepal, lateral sepal, petal, central lip, lateral lip, and flower stalk length were shortest and/or smallest except the spur and ovary length in Calanthe species, but those of Calanthe discolor for. sieboldii (Dence.) Ohwi (Calanthe discolor for. sieboldii) were the largest and/or biggest, and those of variants were the intermediate between C. discolor and C. discolor for. sieboldii, but spur length was the longest in C. discolor, the shortest in C. discolor for. sieboldii, and intermediate in the variants. Ovary length in C. discolor was shortest and C. discolor for. sieboldii and variants were similar with each other. The flower colors of C. discolor were brownish red, the value of CIE Lab was between 40 and 50. The flower color of C. discolor for. sieboldii was yellowish; the value of CIE Lab was between 110 and 130. And variants had various colors between 50 and 70 in the value of CIE Lab. After analyzing multiple band patterns of PCR products, 154 bands were selected as polymorphic RAPD markers. The analysis of Genetic distance of Calanthe species using RAPD showed that C. discolor and C. discolor for. sieboldii are more distant from each other than variants, and demonstrated the fact that genetic position of variants is between the other two species.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.18 no.11
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• pp.1548-1551
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• 2005

The leptin, an anti-obesity protein, is a hormone protein expressed and secreted mainly from adipocyte tissue, and involved in regulation of body weight, food intake and energy metabolism. In an effort to discover polymorphism(s) in genes whose variant(s) might be implicated in phenotypic traits of growth, we have sequenced exons and their boundaries of leptin gene including 1,000 bp upstream of promoter region with twenty-four unrelated Korean cattle. Fifty-seven sequence variants were identified: fourteen in 5' flanking region, twenty-seven in introns, eight in exons, and eight in 3' flanking region. By pair-wise linkage analysis among polymorphisms, ten sets of SNPs were in absolute linkage disequilibrium (LD) (|D'| = 1 and $r^2$ = 1). Among variants identified, thirty-six SNPs were newly identified, and twenty-one SNPs, which were reported in other breeds, were also confirmed in Korean cattle. The allele frequencies of variants were quite different among breeds. The information from SNPs of bovine leptin gene could be useful for further genetic studies of this gene.

• Journal of Genetic Medicine
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.85-93
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• 2022

Purpose: Cornelia de Lange syndrome (CdLS) is a rare genetically heterogeneous disorder caused by genetic variants of the cohesin complex. However, the diverse genetic etiologies and their phenotypic correlations in Korean patients with CdLS are still largely unknown. Hence, this study aimed to clarify the clinical characteristics and genetic background of Korean patients with CdLS. Materials and Methods: The medical records of 15 unrelated patients (3 males and 12 females) genetically confirmed to have CdLS were retrospectively reviewed. All individuals were diagnosed with CdLS using target gene analysis, whole-exome sequencing, and/or chromosomal microarray analysis. The clinical score (CS) was calculated to assess disease severity. Results: The median age at diagnosis was 1.7 (range, 0.0-11.8) years, and median follow-up duration was 3.8 (range, 0.4-11.7) years. Eight (53.3%) patients showed classic phenotypes of CdLS, two (13.3%) showed non-classic phenotypes, and five (33.3%) had other phenotypes sharing limited signs of CdLS. Fifteen causative variants were identified: NIPBL in five (33.3%, including 3 males), SMC1A in three (20.0%), SMC3 in three (20.0%), and HDAC8 in four (26.7%) patients. The CS was significantly higher in the NIPBL group than in the non-NIPBL group (14.2±1.3 vs. 8.7±2.9, P<0.001). Conclusion: We identified the clinical and genetic heterogeneity of CdLS in Korean patients. Patients with variants of NIPBL had a more distinctive phenotype than those carrying variants of other cohesin complex genes (SMC1A, SMC3, and HDAC8). However, further studies are warranted to understand the pathogenesis of CdLS as a cohesinopathy and its genotype-phenotype correlations.

• Journal of Genetic Medicine
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.51-54
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• 2020

Since the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics and Association of Molecular Pathology published their guidelines in 2015, most interpretations of genetic tests have followed them. However, all variants have only limited evidence along 28 interpretation standards, especially de novo variants. When de novo variants, which are classified as variants of uncertain significance (VUS) due to lack of evidence, are detected, segregation in the affected family could provide an important key to clarifying the variants. Autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease is the most common inherited kidney disorder with pathogenic variants in the PKD1 or PKD2 genes. We detected a novel in-frame deletion variant in the PKD1 gene, c.7575_7577del (p.(Cys2526del)), which was interpreted as a VUS. We analyzed this variant in a Korean family to decide for segregation. Here, we report the variant as a likely pathogenic variant based on the evidence of segregation in three affected relatives and two unaffected members.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.37.1-37.7
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• 2021

Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) facilitated the discovery of countless disease-associated variants. However, GWASs have mostly been conducted in European ancestry samples. Recent studies have reported that these European-based association results may reduce disease prediction accuracy when applied in non-Europeans. Therefore, previously reported variants should be validated in non-European populations to establish reliable scientific evidence for precision medicine. In this study, we validated known associations with type 2 diabetes (T2D) and related metabolic traits in 125,850 samples from a Korean population genotyped by the Korea Biobank Array (KBA). At the end of December 2020, there were 8,823 variants associated with glycemic traits, lipids, liver enzymes, and T2D in the GWAS catalog. Considering the availability of imputed datasets in the KBA genome data, publicly available East Asian T2D summary statistics, and the linkage disequilibrium among the variants (r² < 0.2), 2,900 independent variants were selected for further analysis. Among these, 1,837 variants (63.3%) were statistically significant (p ≤ 0.05). Most of the non-replicated variants (n = 1,063) showed insufficient statistical power and decreased minor allele frequencies compared with the replicated variants. Moreover, most of known variants showed <10% genetic heritability. These results could provide valuable scientific evidence for future study designs, the current power of GWASs, and future applications in precision medicine in the Korean population.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.101-108
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• 2018

G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are the largest superfamily of transmembrane receptors and have vital signaling functions in various organs. Because of their critical roles in physiology and pathology, GPCRs are the most commonly used therapeutic target. It has been suggested that GPCRs undergo massive genetic variations such as genetic polymorphisms and DNA insertions or deletions. Among these genetic variations, non-synonymous natural variations change the amino acid sequence and could thus alter GPCR functions such as expression, localization, signaling, and ligand binding, which may be involved in disease development and altered responses to GPCR-targeting drugs. Despite the clinical importance of GPCRs, studies on the genotype-phenotype relationship of GPCR natural variants have been limited to a few GPCRs such as b-adrenergic receptors and opioid receptors. Comprehensive understanding of non-synonymous natural variations within GPCRs would help to predict the unknown genotype-phenotype relationship and yet-to-be-discovered natural variants. Here, we analyzed the non-synonymous natural variants of all non-olfactory GPCRs available from a public database, UniProt. The results suggest that non-synonymous natural variations occur extensively within the GPCR superfamily especially in the N-terminus and transmembrane domains. Within the transmembrane domains, natural variations observed more frequently in the conserved residues, which leads to disruption of the receptor function. Our analysis also suggests that only few non-synonymous natural variations have been studied in efforts to link the variations with functional consequences.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.161-167
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• 1993

Immobilized metal ion affinity chromatography (IMAC) was used to separate various types of recombinant hirudins from the culture broth. The wild type hirudin exhibited a retention in Cu(II)-chelated affinity chromatgoraphy since it contained a single exposed histidine at position 51. To obtain a stronger retention on an IDA-Cu(II) column, the hirudin variants were genetically engineered to contain one or two histidine (s) more than the wild type. While the affinity of the variants for IDA-Cu(II) ligand increased in comparison to that of the wild type, the antithrombin activities reduced to a certain degree. Cu(II), Ni(II) and Zn(II) ions were applied separately to the metal chelate column to investigate ligand specificity with respect to protein retention. As a result, the Cu(II) chelated chromatography gave the best resolution for all the hirudins tested and appeared to be the only IMAC that could be used generally for the purification of hirudins with a decreasing pH gradient.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.64-68
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• 2011

Monomelic amyotrophy (MA), also known as Hirayama disease, occurs mainly in young men and manifests as weakness and wasting of the muscles of the distal upper limbs. Here, we sought to identify a genetic basis for MA. Given the predominance of MA in males, we focused on candidate neurological disease genes located on the X chromosome, selecting two X-linked candidate genes, androgen receptor (AR ) and ubiquitin-like modifier activating enzyme 1 (UBA1). Screening for genetic variants using patients' genomic DNA revealed three known genetic variants in the coding region of the AR gene: one nonsynonymous single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP; rs78686797) encoding Leu57Gln, and two variants of polymorphic trinucleotide repeat segments that encode polyglutamine (CAG repeat; rs5902610) and polyglycine (GGC repeat; rs3138869) tracts. Notably, the Leu57Gln polymorphism was found in two patients with MA from 24 MA patients, whereas no variants were found in 142 healthy male controls. However, the numbers of CAG and GGC repeats in the AR gene were within the normal range. These data suggest that the Leu57Gln polymorphism encoded by the X-linked AR gene may contribute to the development of MA.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.11-17
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• 2017

Crohn's disease (CD) is a chronic inflammatory bowel disease with multifactorial causes including environmental and genetic factors. Several studies have demonstrated that the organic cation/carnitine transporter 1 (OCTN1) non-synonymous variant L503F is associated with susceptibility to CD. However, it was reported that L503F is absent in Asian populations. Previously, we identified and functionally characterized genetic variants of the OCTN1 promoter region in Koreans. In that study, four variants demonstrated significant changes in promoter activity. In the present study, we determined whether four functional variants of the OCTN1 promoter play a role in the susceptibility to or clinical course of CD in Koreans. To examine it, the frequencies of the four variants of the OCTN1 promoter were determined by genotyping using DNA samples from 194 patients with CD and 287 healthy controls. Then, associations between genetic variants and the susceptibility to CD or clinical course of CD were evaluated. We found that susceptibility to CD was not associated with OCTN1 functional promoter variants or haplotypes showing altered promoter activities in in vitro assays. However, OCTN1 functional promoter haplotypes showing decreased promoter activities were significantly associated with a penetrating behavior in CD patients (HR=2.428, p=0.009). Our results suggest that the OCTN1 functional promoter haplotypes can influence the CD phenotype, although these might not be associated with susceptibility to this disease.