• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.16
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• pp.6665-6668
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• 2014

Introduction: Breast cancer in young women is a relatively rare disease; however it tends to be more aggressive and is the leading cause of cancer death in this population. The aim of this study is to investigate the clinical and biological features of breast cancer arising in young Turkish breast cancer patients. Materials and Methods: Patients with breast cancer aged 35 or less (${\leq}35$ years) were selected for the study. In total 211 cases were included. Pathologic features; histologic subtypes, grade, lymphovascular invasion, axillary involvement, and stage were recorded for each. Results: The most common subtype was luminal B (36.5%), followed by luminal A (30.8%), triple negative (23.2%) and HER2+(9.5%) subtypes. Twelve percent of the patients had stage 4, 32.7% had stage 3, 46.4% had stage 2, and 6.2% had stage 1 disease at the time of diagnosis. Mean tumour diameter was 3.87 cm (range 0.3-13 cm). The axillary lymph nodes were positive in 74.4% of the patients, while lympho-vascular invasion was seen in 56.4%. Some 9.5% of patients had grade 1, 51.2% had grade 2, and 31.8% had grade 3 tumors. Conclusions: Young women with breast cancer in Turkey are more likely to present with luminal B subtype. Tumors in young women are more likely to present with advanced disease, to be high grade and and to have more lymphovascular invasion. Further research should focus on whether we need new treatment strategies for young patients with breast carcinoma.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.113-118
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• 1999

The insulin-like growth factor (IGF) is found in all vertebrates and its type-II molecule is regarded as a fundamental embryonic growth factor during development. We have firstly identified, in this study, a cDNA clone corresponding to IGF-II (flIGF-II) from the adult brain of the teleost, Paralichthys olivaceus. We also examined the tissue expression of flIGF-II in several adult tissues by RT-PCR. The flIGF-II cDNA contained a complete ORF consisting of 215 amino acids and one stop codon. Its molecular characteristics appear to be similar to the previously identified IGF-II molecules, in which a common primary structure exhibiting B, C, A, D, and E domains is evidently observed. This cDNA clone seems to be cleaved at $Ala_{52}$ for the $NH_2$-end signal peptide and appears to produce a 98 amino acid-long E-peptide from the $Arg^{118}$. The functional B-D domain regions, therefore, include 65 amino acids and is able to encode a 7.4-kDa protein. The most prominent structural difference between IGF-I and IGF-II was that the D domain of IGF-II exhibits a two-codon-deleted pattern compared to the 8 amino acid-containing IGF-I. The insulin family signature in the A domain and six cysteins forming three disulfide bridges between the B and A domains were evolutionary-conserved from teleosts to mammalian IGF-II. Interestingly, the E-peptide region appears to provide a distinct hallmark between teleosts in amino acid composition. The flIGF-II shows 85.1% of sequence identity to salmon and trout, 90.6% to tilapia, and 98.4% to perch in amino acid level. In tissue expressions of IGF-II, it is very likely that flIGF-II has a significant expression in the adult brain. However, liver seems to be the main source for IGF-II production, and relatively low signals were observed in the adult muscle and kidney. Taken together, it would be concluded that the functional region for IGF-II mRNA is highly similar in phylogeny and is evolutionary, conserved as a mediator for the growth of vertebrates.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.447-453
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• 1986

The culture filtrate of thermophilic alkalophilic Bacillus K17 strain contained two types of xylanases were purified by ammonium sulfate fractionation, DEAD-Sephadex A-50 column chromatography, CM-Sephadex C-50 column chromatography and Sephadex G-100 gel filtration. The purified enzymes were found to be homogeneous by sodium dodecyl sulfate and disc polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Xylanase I and II were characterized with respect to molecular weight, optimal temperature and pH, thermal and pH stability, and Michaelis constant. Xylanase II was more active and stable, and showed greater substrate affinity and molecular weight than xylanase I. The activities of xylanases I and II were inhibited by Cu$^{++}$, Ag$^+$, Hg$^{++}$ and Fe$^{++}$. Xylanase I hydrolyzed xylan to yield xylobiose and higher amount of xylooligosaccharides, but xylanase II produced xylose other than xylobiose and xylooligosacchrides.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.248-254
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• 2008

Candida magnoliae, an osmotolerant and erythritol producing yeast, prefers D-fructose to D-glucose as carbon sources. For the investigation of the fructophilic characteristics with respect to sugar transportation, a sequential extraction method using various detergents and ultracentrifugation was developed to isolate cellular membrane proteins in C. magnoliae. Immunoblot analysis with the Pma1 antibody and two-dimensional electrophoresis analysis coupled with MS showed that the fraction II was enriched with membrane proteins. Eighteen proteins out of 36 spots were identified as membrane or membrane-associated proteins involved in sugar uptake, stress response, carbon metabolism, and so on. Among them, three proteins were significantly upregulated under the fructose supplying conditions. The hexose transporter was highly homologous to Ght6p in Schizosaccharomyces pombe, which was known as a predominant transporter for the fructose uptake of S. pombe because it exhibited higher affinity to D-fructose than D-glucose. The physicochemical properties of the ATP-binding cassette transporter and inorganic transporter explained their direct or indirect associations with the fructophilic behavior of C. magnoliae. The identification and characterization of membrane proteins involved in sugar uptake might contribute to the elucidation of the selective utilization of fructose to glucose by C. magnoliae at a molecular level.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.180-184
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• 2009

The apoptotic effect of bacteria-derived $\beta$-glucan was investigated in human colon cancer cells SNU-C4 using terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase (TdT)-mediated dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) assay, reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) expressions of Bcl-2, Bax, and Caspase-3 genes, and assay of caspase-3 enzyme activity. $\beta$-Glucan of 10, 50, and $100{\mu}g$/mL decreased cell viability in a dose-dependent manner with typical apoptotic characteristics, such as morphological changes of chromatin condensation and apoptotic body formation from TUNEL assay. In addition, $\beta$-glucan ($100{\mu}g$/mL) decreased the expression of Bc1-2 by 0.6 times, whereas the expression of Bax and Caspase-3 were increased by 3.1 and 2.3 times, respectively, compared to untreated control group. Furthermore, the caspase-3 activity in the $\beta$-glucan-treated group was significantly increased compared to those in control group (P < 0.05). Bacterial derived $\beta$-glucan could be used as an effective compound inducing apoptosis in human colon cancer.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.31-37
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• 2013

Background: Throughout Indonesia, thyroid cancer is one of the ten commonest malignancies, with papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) in our hospital accounting for about 60% of all thyroid nodules. Although fine needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) is the most reliable diagnostic tool, some nodules are diagnosed as indeterminate and second surgery is common for PTC. The aim of this study was to establish the diagnostic value and feasibility of testing the BRAF T1799A mutation on FNA specimens for improving PTC diagnosis. Materials and Methods: This prospective study enrolled 95 patients with thyroid nodules and future surgery planned. Results of mutational status were compared with surgical pathology diagnosis. Results: Of the 70 cases included in the final analysis, 62.8% were PTC and the prevalence of BRAF mutation was 38.6%. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV) for BRAF mutation analysis were 36%, 100%, 100% and 48%, respectively. With other data findings, nodules with "onset less than 5 year" and "hard consistency" were proven as diagnostic determinants for BRAF mutation with a probability of 62.5%. This mutation was also a significant risk factor for extra-capsular extension. Conclusions: Molecular analysis of the BRAF T1799A mutation in FNAB specimens has high specificity and positive predictive value for PTC. It could be used in the selective patients with clinical characteristics to facilitate PTC diagnosis and for guidance regarding extent of thyroidectomy.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.31 no.8
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• pp.2163-2169
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• 2010

G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) are involved in a wide variety of physiological processes and are known to be targets for nearly 50% of drugs. The various functions of GPCRs are affected by their cognate ligands which are mainly classified as agonists and antagonists. The purpose of this study is to develop a Bayesian classification model, that can predict a compound as either human GPCR agonist or antagonist. Total 6627 compounds experimentally determined as either GPCR agonists or antagonists covering all the classes of GPCRs were gathered to comprise the dataset. This model distinguishes GPCR agonists from GPCR antagonists by using chemical fingerprint, FCFP_6. The model revealed distinctive structural characteristics between agonistic and antagonistic compounds: in general, 1) GPCR agonists were flexible and had aliphatic amines, and 2) GPCR antagonists had planar groups and aromatic amines. This model showed very good discriminative ability in general, with pretty good discriminant statistics for the training set (accuracy: 90.1%) and a good predictive ability for the test set (accuracy: 89.2%). Also, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) plot showed the area under the curve (AUC) to be 0.957, and Matthew's Correlation Coefficient (MCC) value was 0.803. The quality of our model suggests that it could aid to classify the compounds as either GPCR agonists or antagonists, especially in the early stages of the drug discovery process.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.540-544
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• 2008

Pyrolytic characteristics of mixed plastics containing 22 wt.% HDPE, 17 wt.% LDPE, 27 wt.% PP, 12 wt.% PS, 16 wt.% ABS, 6 wt.% PVC have been studied in the batch-type microreactor of stainless steel. Thermal degradation experiments were performed at temperature of $410{\sim}450^{\circ}C$. The yield of each pyrolytic products were obtained by the weight measurement and molecular weight distribution of pyrolytic liquid products determined by the GC-SIMDIS method. It was shown that the yield and molecular weight of pyrolytic liquid product were decreased with the increase of reaction temperature and time. It was know that 20wt% of PVC composing of the mixed plastics was converted to the gas products of chloride during the pyrolysis process. The chain-end scission rate parameter was determined to be 50.2 kcal/mole of mixed plastics by the Arrhenius plot.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.260-265
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• 2005

In this work, molecular imprinted polymers (MIPs) using the template of the N-CBZ (carbobenzyloxy)-L-phenylalanine, MAA and 4-VPY as a monomer, EGDMA as a crosslinker and AIBN as an initiator were considered. The prepared polymer particles $(Ca.\;25-35\;{\mu}m)$ were packed into a chromatographic column $(3.9\;\times\;150\;mm)$. The chromatographic characteristics of the retention on the MIP were experimented with acetonitrile as a mobile phase at the flow rate of mobile phase, 0.5 ml/min. The retention factors and resolutions of chiral racemate of the N-CBZ-D, L-phenylalanine were measured. The results showed that the retention factor and resolution by the two co-monomer imprinting polymer were higher than the single monomer imprinting polymers, which indicated an increase in the affinity of the MIP with the sample as a result of the cooperation effect of the binding sites.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.547-554
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• 2005

A developed Web-aided laboratory program visualized invisible gas. In the Web-aided laboratory temperature and pressure were controlled and the resultant findings were presented as types of graphs, disclosed in the form of an analyzed report. A Web-aided laboratory experiment and traditional experiment group(2 classes) were assembled from a farming village co-educational high school and taught the motion of molecule lesson for 2 class hours. Before actual class instruction, to survey learner motivation characteristics, the short-version GALT, the test of attitudes toward science instruction, was administered. After instruction, student learning achievement, TOSRA, and IMMS, were administered to the two groups. To analyze data ANCOVA was administrated. Result found that attitudes towards science instruction did not significantly differ, but learning motivation and achievement were significantly altered.