• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.29.1-29.10
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• 2021

In our previous studies, we have demonstrated the association of certain variants of the thyroid-stimulating hormone receptor (TSHR), thyroid peroxidase (TPO), and thyroglobulin (TG) genes with congenital hypothyroidism. Herein, we explored the mechanistic basis for this association using different in silico tools. The mRNA 3'-untranslated region (3'-UTR) plays key roles in gene expression at the post-transcriptional level. In TSHR variants (rs2268477, rs7144481, and rs17630128), the binding affinity of microRNAs (miRs) (hsa-miR-154-5p, hsa-miR-376a-2-5p, hsa-miR-3935, hsa-miR-4280, and hsa-miR-6858-3p) to the 3'-UTR is disrupted, affecting post-transcriptional gene regulation. TPO and TG are the two key proteins necessary for the biosynthesis of thyroid hormones in the presence of iodide and H₂O₂. Reduced stability of these proteins leads to aberrant biosynthesis of thyroid hormones. Compared to the wild-type TPO protein, the p.S398T variant was found to exhibit less stability and significant rearrangements of intra-atomic bonds affecting the stoichiometry and substrate binding (binding energies, ΔG of wild-type vs. mutant: -15 vs. -13.8 kcal/mol; and dissociation constant, K_d of wild-type vs. mutant: 7.2E^-12 vs. 7.0E^-11 M). The missense mutations p.G653D and p.R1999W on the TG protein showed altered ΔG(0.24 kcal/mol and 0.79 kcal/mol, respectively). In conclusion, an in silico analysis of TSHR genetic variants in the 3'-UTR showed that they alter the binding affinities of different miRs. The TPO protein structure and mutant protein complex (p.S398T) are less stable, with potentially deleterious effects. A structural and energy analysis showed that TG mutations (p.G653D and p.R1999W) reduce the stability of the TG protein and affect its structure-functional relationship.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.33 no.12
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• pp.1563-1575
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• 2023

Acyl-coenzyme A (CoA):diacylglycerol acyltransferase 2 (DGAT2) catalyzes the last stage of triacylglycerol (TAG) synthesis, a process that forms ester bonds with diacylglycerols (DAG) and fatty acyl-CoA substrates. The enzymatic role of Dgat2 has been studied in various biological species. Still, the full description of how Dgat2 channels fatty acids in skeletal myocytes and the consequence thereof in glucose uptake have yet to be well established. Therefore, this study explored the mediating role of Dgat2 in glucose uptake and fatty acid partitioning under short interfering ribonucleic acid (siRNA)-mediated Dgat2 knockdown conditions. Cells transfected with Dgat2 siRNA downregulated glucose transporter type 4 (Glut4) messenger RNA (mRNA) expression and decreased the cellular uptake of [1-¹⁴C]-labeled 2-deoxyglucose up to 24.3% (p < 0.05). Suppression of Dgat2 deteriorated insulin-induced Akt phosphorylation. Dgat2 siRNA reduced [1-¹⁴C]-labeled oleic acid incorporation into TAG, but increased the level of [1-¹⁴C]-labeled free fatty acids at 3 h after initial fatty acid loading. In an experiment of chasing radioisotope-labeled fatty acids, Dgat2 suppression augmented the level of cellular free fatty acids. It decreased the level of re-esterification of free fatty acids to TAG by 67.6% during the chase period, and the remaining pulses of phospholipids and cholesteryl esters were decreased by 34.5% and 61%, respectively. Incorporating labeled fatty acids into beta-oxidation products increased in Dgat2 siRNA transfected cells without gene expression involving fatty acid oxidation. These results indicate that Dgat2 has regulatory function in glucose uptake, possibly through the reaction of TAG with endogenously released or recycled fatty acids.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.42-49
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• 2011

We deposited $SiN_x$ thin films by using PECVD technique at $200^{\circ}C$ with various flow ratios of the $SiH_4/N_2$ gases. The photoluminescence measurements revealed that the maximum emission wavelength shifted to long wavelength as the ratio increased, however, positions of the several peak wavelengths, such as 1.9, 2.2, 2.4, and 3.1 eV, were independent on the ratio. Changes of the photoluminescence spectra were measured in the $N_{2}-$, $H_{2}-$, and $O_2$-annealed films. The luminescence intensities increased after the annealing process. In particular, the maximum emission wavelength shifted to short wavelength after $H_{2}-$ or $O_2$-annealing. But there were still several peaks on the spectra of all annealed films, several peak positions remained to be unchanged after the annealing. As for the light emission mechanism, we have considered the defect states of the Si- and N- dangling bonds in the $SiN_x$ energy gap, so that the energy transitions from/to the conduction/valence bands and the defect states in the gap were attributed to the light emission in the $SiN_x$ films. The experimental results point to the possibility of a Si-based light emission materials for flexible Si-based electro-optic devices.

• Macromolecular Research
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.408-415
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• 2006

Temperature-dependent, wide-angle, x-ray diffraction (WAXD) patterns and infrared (IR) spectra were measured for biodegradable poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) and its copolymers, poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyhexanoate) P(HB-co-HHx) (HHx=2.5, 3.4, 10.5, and 12 mol%), in order to explore their crystal and lamellar structure and their pattern of C-H...O=C hydrogen bonding. The WAXD patterns showed that the P(HB-co-HHx) copolymers have the same orthorhombic system as PHB. It was found from the temperature-dependent WAXD measurements of PHB and P(HB-co-HHx) that the a lattice parameter is more enlarged than the b lattice parameter during heating and that only the a lattice parameter shows reversibility during both heating and cooling processes. These observations suggest that an interaction occurs along the a axis in PHB and P(HB-co-HHx). This interaction seems to be due to an intermolecular C-H...O=C hydrogen bonding between the C=O group in one helical structure and the $CH_3$ group in the other helical structure. The x-ray crystallographic data of PHB showed that the distance between the O atom of the C=O group in one helical structure and the H atom of one of the three C-H bonds of the $CH_3$ group in the other helix structure is $2.63{\AA}$, which is significantly shorter than the sum of the van der Waals separation ($2.72{\AA}$). This result and the appearance of the $CH_3$ asymmetric stretching band at $3009 cm^{-1}$ suggest that there is a C-H...O=C hydrogen bond between the C=O group and the $CH_3$ group in PHB and P(HB-co-HHx). The temperature-dependent WAXD and IR measurements revealed that the crystallinity of P(HB-co-HHx) (HHx =10.5 and 12 mol%) decreases gradually from a fairly low temperature, while that of PHB and P(HB-co-HHx) (HHx = 2.5 and 3.5 mol%) remains almost unchanged until just below their melting temperatures. It was also shown from our studies that the weakening of the C-H...O = C interaction starts from just above room temperature and proceeds gradually increasing temperature. It seems that the C-H...O=C hydrogen bonding stabilizes the chain holding in the lamellar structure and affects the thermal behaviour of PHB and its copolymers.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.49-55
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• 2016

The effects of post-annealing and temperature/humidity conditions on the interfacial adhesion energies of atomic layer deposited RuAlO diffusion barrier layer for Cu interconnects were systematically investigated. The initial interfacial adhesion energy measured by four-point bending test was $7.60J/m^2$. The interfacial adhesion energy decreased to $5.65J/m^2$ after 500 hrs at $85^{\circ}C$/85% T/H condition, while it increased to $24.05J/m^2$ after annealing at $200^{\circ}C$ for 500 hrs. The X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS) analysis showed that delaminated interface was RuAlO/$SiO_2$ for as-bonded and T/H conditions, while it was Cu/RuAlO for post-annealing condition. XPS O1s peak separation results revealed that the effective generation of strong Al-O-Si bonds between $AlO_x$ and $SiO_2$ interface at optimum post-annealing conditions is responsible for enhanced interfacial adhesion energies between RuAlO/$SiO_2$ interface, which would lead to good electrical and mechanical reliabilities of atomic layer deposited RuAlO diffusion barrier for advanced Cu interconnects.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.105-111
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• 1999

When the preparation method of iron silicide films possess the annealing process, the interfacial state of the films is not fine. The good quality films were obtained as the plasma was used without annealing processing. Since the injected precursors were various active species in the plasma state, the organic compound was contained in the prepared films. We confirmed the formation of Fe-Si bonds as well as the organic compound by Fe and Si vibration mode in Raman scattering spectrum at $250cm^{-1}$ and Ft-IR. Because of epitaxy growth being progressed by the high energy of plasma at the low temperature of substrate, iron silicide was epitaxially grown to ${\beta}$-phase that had lattice structure such as [220]/[202] and [115]. Band gap of the prepared films had value of 1.182~1.174 eV and optical gap energy was shown value of 3.4~3.7 eV. The Urbach tail and the sub-band-gap absorptions were appeared by organic compound in films. We knew that the prepared films by plasma were obtained a good quality films because of being grown single crystal.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.87-94
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• 1988

By affinity chromatography using a monoclonal antibody as ligand, Kim et at. (1986) purified a protein fraction in cystic fluid of Taenia solium metacestodes (CF) In this study, the biochemical properties of the purified protein were characterized. Discontinuous-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (disc-PAGE) of the protein at 4.5∼10% separating gel concentration showed its molecular weight (MW) to be 150 kilodalton (kDa) in non·denatured state, while denaturing sodium dodecyl suifate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) revealed that it was composed of 3 different subunits with respective fnw of 15, 10 and 7 kDa. Subunit of 7 kDa was shown to be linked to other subunits by disulade bonds. Isoelectric point of the protein was pH 6.8. The protein was relatively heat-stable for immunologic analysis. These properties indicated that the protein, comprising about 70% of total content in CF, had similar biochemical characters with antigen B of Oriol et at.(1971) in hydatid cyst quid (HF).

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Near Infrared Spectroscopy Conference
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• 2001.06a
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• pp.1131-1131
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• 2001

To develop a nondestructive quality evaluation technique of fruits, a K-mean algorism is applied to near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy of apples. The K-mean algorism is one of neural network partition methods and the goal is to partition the set of objects O into K disjoint clusters, where K is assumed to be known a priori. The algorism introduced by Macqueen draws an initial partition of the objects at random. It then computes the cluster centroids, assigns objects to the closest of them and iterates until a local minimum is obtained. The advantage of using neural network is that the spectra at the wavelengths having absorptions against chemical bonds including C-H and O-H types can be selected directly as input data. In conventional multiple regression approaches, the first wavelength is selected manually around the absorbance wavelengths as showing a high correlation coefficient between the NIR $2^{nd}$ derivative spectrum and Brix value with a single regression. After that, the second and following wavelengths are selected statistically as the calibration equation shows a high correlation. Therefore, the second and following wavelengths are selected not in a NIR spectroscopic way but in a statistical way. In this research, the spectra at the six wavelengths including 900, 904, 914, 990, 1000 and 1016nm are selected as input data for K-mean analysis. 904nm is selected because the wavelength shows the highest correlation coefficients and is regarded as the absorbance wavelength. The others are selected because they show relatively high correlation coefficients and are revealed as the absorbance wavelengths against the chemical structures by B. G. Osborne. The experiment was performed with two phases. In first phase, a reflectance was acquired using fiber optics. The reflectance was calculated by comparing near infrared energy reflected from a Teflon sphere as a standard reference, and the $2^{nd}$ derivative spectra were used for K-mean analysis. Samples are intact 67 apples which are called Fuji and cultivated in Aomori prefecture in Japan. In second phase, the Brix values were measured with a commercially available refractometer in order to estimate the result of K-mean approach. The result shows a partition of the spectral data sets of 67 samples into eight clusters, and the apples are classified into samples having high Brix value and low Brix value. Consequently, the K-mean analysis realized the classification of apples on the basis of the Brix values.

• Korean Journal of Crystallography
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.38-42
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• 2005

The crystal structure of Bis(ethylenediamine) cuprate(II)$\cdot$dichromate, $Cu(C_2H_8N_2)_2{\cdot}Cr_2O_7$, has been determined by X-ray crystallography. Crystal data: a=5.682(2), b=8.567(3), c=14.839(3) ${\AA},\;{\alpha}=97.50(2),\;{\beta}=101.06(1),\;{\gamma}=109.38(2)^{\circ}$ Triclinic, P-1 (SG No=2), Z=2, V=653.9(2) ${\AA}^3,\;D_c=2.030gcm^{-3},\;{\mu}=3.273mm^{-1}$. The structure was solved by Patterson method and refined by full matrix least-square methods uslng unit weights. The final R and S values were $R_1=0.0256,\;R_w=0.0708,\;R_{all}=0.0316,\;S=1.151$ for the observed 2291 reflections. The two cupper complex ion has the usual distorted octahedral structure with mean four Cu-N distances of 2.010(3) $\AA$ and the longer mean Cu-O distance of 2.525(2) $\AA$. The Cu-complex and dichromate ions are linked to form infinite chain arranged alternatively along the [111]-direction. The neighboring chains in the (0-11) plane are connected with N1-O5 and N3-O1 hydrogen bonds.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.103-108
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• 2004

High-quality ZnO films were grown on sapphire (001) substrates by the atomic layer epitaxy (ALE) technique using DEZn as a Zinc precusor and $H_2O $ as an oxidant at both $170^{\circ}C$ and $400^{\circ}C$ which are in the ALE and the CVD process temperature ranges, respectively. The films were annealed in an oxygen atmosphere in the temperature range from 600 to 100$0^{\circ}C$ for an hour and then investigate photoluminescence (PL) properties using He-Cd laser. PL intensity tends to increases as the annealing temperature increase for both the annealed ZnO films grown at $170^{\circ}C$ and $400^{\circ}C$ , while PL did not nearly occur at the as-deposited ones. The PL intensity of the ZnO film grown at $400^{\circ}C$ is low after it is annealed at high temperature owing to a large number of Zn-Zn bonds although it has increased in the visible light wavelength region after annealing. In contrast the PL intensity has increased significant in the visible light region after annealing