• Journal of Life Science
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.176-182
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• 2011

Deep seawater (DSW) generally refers to seawater at depths equal to or greater than 200 meters. DSW is rich in inorganic materials which have attracted attention for its various applications. In this study we investigated the effects of the DSW upwelled from the East Sea, offshore Yang Yang (KangWon-do, Korea), on the expression of ${\mu}$-opioid receptor (MOR) of cultured rat hippocampal neurons. Neurons were grown in a minimal essential medium containing 10% (v/v) fetal bovine serum and either 25% (v/v) distilled water, or hardness (H) 800, or H 1000 DSW. Cultures grown in the presence of DSW with H 800 and H 1000 exhibited robust MOR immunoreactive signals in both neurons and astrocytes. Interestingly, the increase in MOR immunoreactive signals was more dramatic in astrocytes than in neurons. Statistical analysis revealed that the relative intensities for MOR clusters increased approximately 4-fold in astrocytes cultured in H 800 and H 1000 media. These increases were statistically very significant (p<0.001). In contrast, the increase in intensities for MOR immunoreactive signals was relatively less dramatic in neurons, where only the increase in the H 1000 culture was statistically very significant (p<0.001). These results indicated that DSW promotes expression of MOR in both neurons and astrocytes, and more significantly in the latter.

• Annals of Coloproctology
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.286-291
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• 2018

Purpose: Stage-IIIC colon cancer is an advanced disease; however, its oncologic outcomes and prognostic factors remain unclear. In this study, we aimed to determine the predictors of disease-free survival (DFS) in patients with stage-IIIC colon cancer. Methods: From a multicenter database, we retrospectively enrolled 611 patients (355 men and 256 women) who had undergone a potentially curative resection for a stage-IIIC colon adenocarcinoma between 2003 and 2011. The primary endpoint was the 5-year DFS. Results: The median age was 62 years; 213 and 398 patients had right-sided colon cancer (RCC) and left-sided colon cancer (LCC), respectively. The 5-year DFS in all patients was 52.0%; median follow-up time was 35 months (range, 1-134 months). A multivariate Cox regression revealed that female sex (hazard ratio [HR], 1.50; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.19-1.90; P < 0.01), right-sided tumor location (HR, 1.65; 95% CI, 1.29-2.11; P < 0.01), lymphatic invasion (HR, 1.52; 95% CI, 1.08-2.15; P < 0.01) and a high (${\geq}0.4$) metastatic lymph node ratio (HR, 3.72; 95% CI, 2.63-5.24; P < 0.01) were independent predictors of worse 5-year DFS. Female patients with RCC were 1.79 fold more likely to experience recurrence than male patients with LCC. Conclusion: Female sex and right-sided tumor location are associated with higher tumor recurrence rates in patients with stage-IIIC colon cancers. Aggressive treatment and close surveillance should be planned for patients in these groups.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.126-133
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• 2021

Background: 20(S)-protopanaxadiol (20(S)-PPD), one of the aglycone derivatives of major ginsenosides, has been shown to have an anticancer activity toward a variety of cancers. This study was initiated with an attempt to evaluate its anti-cancer activity toward human endometrial cancer by cell and xenograft mouse models. Methods: Human endometrial cancer (HEC)-1A cells were incubated with different 20(S)-PPD concentrations. 20(S)-PPD cytotoxicity was evaluated using MTT assay. Apoptosis was detected using the annexin V binding assay and cell cycle analysis. Cleaved poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) and activated caspase-9 were assessed using western blotting. HEC-1A cell tumor xenografts in athymic mice were generated by inoculating HEC-1A cells into the flank of BALB/c female mice and explored to validate 20(S)-PPD anti-endometrial cancer toxicity. Results: 20(S)-PPD inhibited HEC-1A cell proliferation in a dose-dependent manner with an IC50 value of 3.5 μM at 24 h. HEC-1A cells morphologically changed after 20(S)-PPD treatment, bearing resemblance to Taxol-treated cells. Annexin V-positive cell percentages were 0%, 10.8%, and 58.1% in HEC-1A cells when treated with 0, 2.5, and 5 μM of 20(S)-PPD, respectively, for 24 h. 20(S)-PPD subcutaneously injected into the HEC-1A cell xenograft-bearing mice three times a week for 17 days manifested tumor growth inhibition by as much as 18% at a dose of 80 mg/kg, which sharply contrasted to controls that showed an approximately 2.4-fold tumor volume increase. These events paralleled caspase-9 activation and PARP cleavage. Conclusion: 20(S)-PPD inhibits endometrial cancer cell proliferation by inducing cell death via a caspase-mediated apoptosis pathway. Therefore, the 20(S)-PPD-like ginsenosides are endowed with ample structural information that could be utilized to develop other ginsenoside-based anticancer agents.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.197-206
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• 1996

Water extract of Coix locrvmn seeds (Co-Ex) was separated into several components; dissolved with Tris-Cl buffer and the supernatant (WC 1), ammonium sulfate treatment supernatant (WC2) and the pellet nvc31,9AE column chromatography of WC 1 and the peak portions; WC4, WCS and WC6. Murine peritoneal macrophages in DMEM containing 10% heat-inactivated FCS were infected with tachyzoites of ToxopIQsmc gondii, RH strain, in uifo. By adding modulators such as Co-Ex, WC 1,2,3,4.5,6 and LPS or IFN-γ for 24 hrs . toxoplasmastatic activity of macrophages was examined in relation to nitrite production. Nitrite production of macrophages was enhanced especially in the series of WC2, WC1 and the combination sample (WC1 + WC2 + WC3) by order than other components or fractions (WC4, WC5, WC6) tested . Toxoplasmastatic actions such as percentage of the inacrophages infected by T. gonnii and fold increase of T gondii in macrophages showed retroverse relations with the amount of nitrite production; i.e. as nitric oxide (NO) increased the phagocytic index of macrophages and the fold increase of tachyzoites in macrophages decreased . Nitrite (NO-2) production was increased by adding IFN-γ in all cases together with enhancement of biostatic effects. Through the results obtained, it is speculated that some components other than the non-proteinous and defatted components in Coix lacrwmn seeds may contribute to activate macrophages through induction of NO for the biostatic activity.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.1455-1459
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• 2014

We report a sensitive and reliable FRET-based nanotechnology assay for efficient detection and quantification of bisulfite-unmodified or modified DNA. Bisulfite-untreated DNA or bisulfite-treated DNA is subjected to PCR amplification with biotin-conjugated primers so that the amounts of bisulfite-untreated and treated DNA can be differentiated. Streptavidin-coated quantum dots (QDs) are used to capture biotinylated PCR products intercalated with SYBR Green, enabling FRET measurement. Key features of our method include its low intrinsic background noise, high resolution, and high sensitivity, enabling detection of as little as 1.75 ng of bisulfite-untreated DNA in the presence of an approximately 1,000-fold excess of bisulfite-untreated DNA compared to bisulfate-treated DNA, with the use of PCR reduced (as low as 15 cycles). SYBR Green as an intercalating dye as well as a FRET acceptor allows for a single-step preparation without the need for primers or probes to be chemically conjugated to an organic fluorophore. Multiple acceptors per FRET donor significantly enhance the signal-to-noise ratio as well. In consideration of the high relevance of bisulfite treatment to DNA methylation quantitation, our system for FRET measurement between QDs and intercalating dyes can be generally utilized to analyze DNA methylation and to potentially benefit the scientific and clinical community.

• The Korean Journal of Food And Nutrition
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.343-350
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• 2015

The aim of this study was to evaluate the potential anti-inflammorty properties of herbs via MAPKs such as ERK, p38, JNK. Fifty-one kinds of each herbal medicine, that were extracted with ethanol, were used in the inhibitory assay of cytokine (TNF-${\alpha}$, IL-$1{\beta}$ and IL-6) and NO. of these, 10 species of herbal medicines, Angelica dahurica, Atractylodes lancea, Cnidium officinale, Duchesnea chrysantha, Oldenlandia diffusa, Lonicera japonica, Paeonia lactiflora, Pinus thunbergii, Rehmannia glutinosa and Rubus coreanus, were screened as potential inhibitors (< $300{\mu}g/mL$) of NO, TNF-${\alpha}$, IL-$1{\beta}$ and IL-6. Among the 10 species, Lonicera japonica showed potential anti-inflammatory effects Lonicera japonica extract of $200{\mu}g/mL$ inhibited the phosphorylation of ERK, p38 and JNK. In addition, Lonicera japonica extract at 20 mg/kg increased survival rate from LPS-induced endotoxin shock by 3 fold.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.49-60
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• 1997

The purpose of this study was to determine the incidence of malnutrition among patients on admission to hospital, to monitor changes in their nutritional status during hospitalization, and to determine the factors which might affect changes in nutritional status. The subjects for the study were patients who were admitted to general medicine for more than one week. Patients suffering from cardiovascular. renal disease, or dehydration were excluded. Nutritional assessment of the patients was performed on admission and nutritional status was reassessed one week and two weeks after admission. The nutritional assessment tool consisted of subjective history taking and anthropometric measurements. Biochemical measurements were performed only on admission. For anthropometric assessment : patients' body weight, subcutaneous skinfolds thickness, % of body fat, body mass index, and lean body mass were measured using caliper or Bio impedance Analyzer. Factors which might influence current nutritional status, like dietary intake, anorexia, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, sleep disturbance, and number of days of NPO for diagnostic examinations were analyzed. The results are as follows : 1. Of the 59 patients who were studied, 61% were male and 39% female. The nutritional status of all of the 59 subjects was reassessed one week after admission, but it was only done for 22 subjects at two weeks. 2. The anthropometric measurements. including weight body mass index, lean body mass, body fat. and skin fold thickness. were all significantly decreased at one week after admission compared to the values at admission. On the other hand, two weeks after admission, only body weight and abdominal skinfolds thickness were decreased. 3. The subjects reported anorexia for an average of two days, sleep disturbance for two days, and no food intake due to diagnostic test for one day. In the second week of hospitalization, almost none of the patients complained of gastrointestinal symptoms or sleep disturbance except anorexia. Food consumption which was measured based on rice intake was 60% of the food served during the first week of hospitalization, and 66% during the second week of hospitalization. 4. There was no correlation between the subjective nutritional assessment and anthropometric assessment. 5. There was no statistical significance in anthropometric measurements among the patients with various diseases whereas sleep disturbance and no food intake due to various diagnostic test was prominent in patients with gastrointestinal diseases.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Bioinformatics Conference
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• 2005.09a
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• pp.319-324
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• 2005

An integrated approach for prostate cancer detection using proteomic data is presented. Due to the high-dimensional feature of proteomic data, the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) is used in the first-stage for data reduction as well as noise removal. After the process of DWT, the dimensionality is reduced from 43,556 to 1,599. Thus, each sample of proteomic data can be represented by 1599 wavelet coefficients. In the second stage, a voting method is used to select a common set of wavelet coefficients for all samples together. This produces a 987-dimension subspace of wavelet coefficients. In the third stage, the Autoassociator algorithm reduces the dimensionality from 987 to 400. Finally, the artificial neural network (ANN) is applied on the 400-dimension space for prostate cancer detection. The integrated approach is examined on 9 categories of 2-class experiments, and also 3- and 4-class experiments. All of the experiments were run 10 times of ten-fold cross-validation (i. e. 10 partitions with 100 runs). For 9 categories of 2-class experiments, the average testing accuracies are between 81% and 96%, and the average testing accuracies of 3- and 4-way classifications are 85% and 84%, respectively. The integrated approach achieves exciting results for the early detection and diagnosis of prostate cancer.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.32 no.8
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• pp.2593-2598
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• 2011

Polyphenols (PPs) are known as antioxidant compounds having benign biological activities. In this paper, a series of hybrid molecules between the free or acetyl protected polyphenol compounds were synthesized and their in vitro antioxidant activity (DPPH assay) and cholinesterase [acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and butyrylcholinesterase (BuChE)] inhibition activities were evaluated. As expected, free phenolic hybrid compounds (6 and 8) showed better antioxidant activity than acetyl protected hybrid compounds (5 and 7) from DPPH assay. But the contrast result was obtained from BuChE inhibition assay. Acetyl protected hybrid compounds (5 and 7) showed better inhibition activity for BuChE than free phenolic hybrid compounds (6 and 8). Specifically, 10 (AcFA-AcFA) were shown as an effective inhibitor of BuChE ($IC_{50}=2.3{\pm}0.3{\mu}M$) and also had a great selectivity for BuChE over AChE (more than 170 fold). Inhibition kinetic studies with acetyl protected compounds (5, 7, 9, and 10) indicated that 5, 7 and 10 are a hyperbolic mixed-type inhibition and 10 is a competitive inhibition type. The binding affinity (Ki) value of 10 to BuChE is $2.32{\pm}0.15{\mu}M$.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Fundamentals of Nursing
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.280-292
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• 1998

Pressure sores are a serious concerns in that respect to increasing risk of medical complications and medical costs. Prevention and care of pressure sores is an essential area of nursing practice. The nurse at ICU should be more careful of maintaining the skin integrity of patients especially than at any other place. This study was conducted to determine if the risk facotrs of pressure sores and nutritional status of the patients at risk for pressure sores is related the occurance of pressure sore. The risk group refers the patients having the below 14 scores of the braden scale. The 100 subjects were recruited from the ICU ward at an university hospital in Choongnam. The parameters for nutritional status are the blood chemistry including plasma protein, albumin, hemoglobin and the anthropometric measurements consisting of weight, BMI, LBM, the proportion of body fat, body fluid and triceps skin fold using bioimpedence analizer and caliper. The results are as follows : 1. The subjects were 55 years and stayed 8 days on average. Of the 100 subjects, males were 61%, neurologic/neurosurgical diseases were 68% and the incidence of pressure sores was 17% mainly occuring within 3days after the admission. 2. The present paralysis(or paraplegia) and edema(arm, leg, trunk) were showed more significantly the subjects with pressure sores than those without pressure sores. 3. Regarding with the nutritional status, the subjects with pressure sores had significantly lower the weight, BMI, LBM, body fluid, albumin than the ones without pressure sores. This results were supported the reports of previous studies that the decreased weight and albumin could be the important predictors of pressure sores. Thereafter we should encourage these factors to be utilized in predicting pressure sores for a comprehensive assessment. Nurse should identify patients at risk of the development of pressure sores, assess their nutritional status and dietary intake at regular intervals.