• BMB Reports
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.125-131
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• 1997

This work reports studies of the catalytic and structural properties of pyridoxal kinase (ATP: pyridoxal 5' -phosphotransferase, EC. 2.7.1.35), Pyridoxal kinase catalyzes the phosphorylation of vitamin $B_6$ (pyridoxal, pyridoxamine, pyridoxine) using ATP-Zn as a phosphoryl donor. The enzyme purified from brain tissues is made up of two identical subunits of 40 kDa each. Native enzyme was inhibited by a substrate analogue, pyridoxal-oxime. Limited chymotrypsin digestion of pyridoxal kinase yields two fragments of 24 and 16 kDa with concomitant loss of catalytic activity. These fragments were isolated by DEAE ion exchange chromatography and used for binding studies with fluorescent ATP and pyridoxal analogues. The spectroscopic properties of both fluorescent pyridoxal analogue and Anthraniloyl ATP (Ant-ATP) bound to the 24 kDa fragment are indistinguishable from those of both pyridoxal analogue and Ant-ATP bound to the native pyridoxal kinase, respectively. The small 16 kDa fragment, generated by proteolytic cleavage of the kinase, does not bind any of the substrate analogues. Binding characteristics of Ant-ATP were extensively studied by measuring the changes in fluorescence spectra at various conditions. From the results presented herein, it is postulated that the structural domain associated with catalytic activity comprises approximately one-half of the molecular mass of pyridoxal kinase (24 kDa). whereas the remaining portion (16 kDa) of the enzyme contains a regulatory binding domain.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• v.61 no.3
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• pp.333-342
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• 2018

Intracranial germ cell tumors (iGCTs) are a heterogeneous group of tumors with peculiar characteristics clearly distinguished from other brain tumors of neuroepithelial origin. Diverse histology, similarity to gonadal GCT, predilection to one sex, and geographic difference in incidence all present enigmas and fascinating challenges. The treatment of iGCT has advanced for germinoma to date; thus, clinical attention has shifted from survival to long-term quality of life. However, for non-germinomatous GCT, current protocols provide only modest improvement and more innovative therapies are needed. Recently, next-generation sequencing studies have revealed the genomic landscape of iGCT. Novel mutations in the KIT-RAS-MAPK and AKT-MTOR pathways were identified. More importantly, methylation profiling revealed a new method to assess the pathogenesis of iGCT. Molecular research will unleash new knowledge on the origin of iGCT and solve the many mysteries that have lingered on this peculiar neoplasm for a long time.

• BMB Reports
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.28-33
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• 2005

A gene coding a novel isoform of carbamyl phosphate synthetase I (CPS1) was cloned from a human testicular library. As shown by cDNA microarray hybridization, this gene was expressed at a higher level in human adult testes than in fetal testes. The full length of its cDNA was 3831 bp, with a 3149 bp open reading frame, encoding a 1050-amino-acid protein. The cDNA sequence was deposited in the GenBank (AY317138). Sequence analysis showed that it was homologous to the human CPS1 gene. The putative protein contained functional domains composing the intact large subunit of carbamoyl phosphate synthetase, thus indicated it has the capability of arginine biosynthesis. A multiple tissue expression profile showed high expression of this gene in human testis, suggesting the novel alternative splicing form of CPS1 may be correlated with human spermatogenesis.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.458-464
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• 2006

The adsorption ability of heavy metal ions from the aqueous solution by chitosan, which it is well known natural biopolymer, has been investigated. The fundamental study in this research is focusing on the physicochemical adsorption utilizing the chitosan as a organic chelating adsorbent, adsorb especially heavy metal ions from the waste liquid solution. The adsorption ability of the chitosan between metal ions, having different characteristics with Mw of 188,600, 297,200, and 504,200 g/mol and degree of deacetylation (DD) of 86.92% and 100% were investigated targeting on the $Ni^{2+}$, $Co^{2+}$, $Zn^{2+}$, and $Pb^{2+}$ ions, respectively. The uptake of heavy metal ions with chitosan was performed by atomic absorption flame emission spectrophotometer (AAS) as conducted residual metal ions. It was found that chitosan has an strong adsorption capacity for some metals under certain conditions. Chitosan, which have 100% degree of deacetylation showed high adsorption recovery ratio and have an affinity for all kinds of heavy metals. In contrast, the molecular weight of chitosan was not completely affected on metal ion adsorption.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.496-501
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• 2007

Recently, as MEMS and NEMS devices have been widely used in the various engineering applications, the characteristics of nanoscale systems are investigated in the limelight. However, as opposed to a macroscale system, the identification of the state of nanoscale systems is extremely hard because they can include only the order of $10^{3}\sim10^{5}$ molecules, which requires highly expensive and accurate experimental apparatus for an investigation. This limitations make the study on nanoscale system use computer simulations. Therefore, it is strongly required to identify the state of nanoscale system simulated in computer simulation. In these molecular dynamics(MD) study, we suggest that the potential energy of individual molecule can be used as criterion for defining the state of clusters or nanoscale systems. In addition, we compared the phase state from the potential energy with one from the radial distribution function(RDF) for verification. The comparison showed that the intermolecular potential energy can be used as a criteria distinguishing the phase state of nanoscale systems (This study will be published soon in the KSME transaction of the section B).

• ALGAE
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.69-84
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• 2018

We examined the species diversity of Herposiphonia on Korean coasts, based on a combination of morphology and molecular analyses of the mitochondrial COI-5P DNA barcode marker and plastid rbcL gene. We report the presence of eight species including three novel species: H. donghaensis sp. nov., H. jejuinsula sp. nov., H. sparsa sp. nov., H. caespitosa, H. fissidentoides, H. insidiosa, H. parca, and H. subdisticha. Specimens were separated into eight clades in both the COI-5P and rbcL gene analyses, with 1.3-19.6 and 6.6-15% interspecific sequence divergence, respectively. These eight species are also distinguishable by several morphological characteristics such as: branching pattern (d/i pattern in H. donghaensis sp. nov. and H. sparsa sp. nov.; d/d/d/i pattern in others), shape of determinate branch (ligulate in H. fissidentoides; terete in others), number of vegetative trichoblasts (1-2 in H. insidiosa and H. sparsa sp. nov.; 3-4 in H. caespitosa; absent in others), and number of segments and pericentral cells in determinate branches. About three novel species revealed by our analyses, H. donghaensis sp. nov. is newly discovered, and H. jejuinsula sp. nov. and H. sparsa sp. nov. were previously reported in Korea as H. nuda and H. secunda, respectively. Our results show that DNA barcoding and rbcL analyses are useful for delimiting species boundaries and discovering cryptic species diversity in the genus Herposiphonia.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.330-337
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• 2018

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), including naphthalene, are widely distributed in nature. Naphthalene has been regarded as a model PAH compound for investigating the mechanisms of bacterial PAH biodegradation. Pseudomonas sp. AS1 isolated from an arseniccontaminated site is capable of growing on various aromatic compounds such as naphthalene, salicylate, and catechol, but not on gentisate. The genome of strain AS1 consists of a 6,126,864 bp circular chromosome and the 81,841 bp circular plasmid pAS1. Pseudomonas sp. AS1 has multiple dioxygenases and related enzymes involved in the degradation of aromatic compounds, which might contribute to the metabolic versatility of this isolate. The pAS1 plasmid exhibits extremely high similarity in size and sequences to the well-known naphthalene-degrading plasmid pDTG1 in Pseudomonas putida strain NCIB 9816-4. Two gene clusters involved in the naphthalene degradation pathway were identified on pAS1. The expression of several nah genes on the plasmid was upregulated by more than 2-fold when naphthalene was used as a sole carbon source. Strains have been isolated at different times and places with different characteristics, but similar genes involved in the degradation of aromatic compounds have been identified on their plasmids, which suggests that the transmissibility of the plasmids might play an important role in the adaptation of the microorganisms to mineralize the compounds.

• Nutritional Sciences
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.65-70
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• 1999

Feeding rats a diet containing bean-hull causes hypertropy in their parotid glands due to the high tannin content. The amount of feedintake of rats led bean-hull was higher than that of rats fed a standard diet. However, the increase in body weight of rats fed bean-hull was lower than that of rats fed a standard diet, which resulted in significantly low feed efficiency of the bean-hull containing diet. Within one week, parotid glands significantly enlarged and a series of proline-rich proteins (PRPs) were produced, which were similar to those induced by feeding high-tannin sorghum with flight differences in molecular weights. Even though the direct comparison between PRPs produced by the bean-hull containing diet and those induced by the high sorghum diet is not appropriate due to laboratory inconsistences, several new PRPs were produced by high tannin diets in both experiments. Differences in molecular weights of PRPs induced in two different tannin sources must be funker investigated to be fully characterized. These morphological and biochemical changes have now been demonstrated to occur in response to the ingestion of tannins, presumably to diminish the anti-nutritional effects of tannins.

• Interaction and multiscale mechanics
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• v.1 no.4
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• pp.397-409
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• 2008

The interfacial thermal resistance of pristine and defective carbon nanotubes (CNTs) embedded in low-density polyethylene matrix is studied in this paper. Interface thermal resistance in nanosystems is one of the most important factors that lead to the large variation in thermal conductivities in literature and the novelty of this paper lies in the estimation of the interfacial thermal resistance for defective nanotubes-systems. Thermal properties of CNT nanostructures are estimated using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and the simulations were carried out for various temperatures by rescaling the velocities of carbon atoms in the nanotube. This paper also deals with the mesoscale thermal conductivities of composite systems, using effective medium theories by considering the size effect in the form of interfacial thermal resistance and also using the conventional micromechanical methods like Hashin-Shtrikman bounds and Wakashima-Tsukamoto estimates.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.206-212
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• 1999

The gene orf7(oxi III) was expressed using an E. coli system in anticipation that it would encode dTDP-glucose 4,6-dehydratase which is involved in the biosynthesis of the olivose moiety of chlorothricin produced from Streptomyces antibioticus Tu99. The solubility of the expressed protein increased up to 20% under optimal induction conditions. The expressed protein was purified from the E. coli BL 21(DE3) cell lysate by a 28.5-fold purification in two chromatography steps with a 38% recovery to near homogeneity. The molecular weight and N-terminal amino acid sequence of the purified protein correlated with the predicted mass and sequence deduced from the orf7 gene. The purified protein was a homodimer with a subunit relative molecular weight of 38,000 Dalton. The expressed protein was found to exhibit dTDP-glucose 4,6-dehydratase activity and be highly specific for dTDP-glucose as a substrate. The values of K'm and V'max for dTDP-glucose were 28 $\mu$M and 295 nmol $min^{-1} (mg protein)^{-1}$, respectively. dTTP and dTDP were strong inhibitors of this enzyme.$NAD^+$, the coenzyme for dTDP-glucose 4,6-dehydratase, was tightly bound to the expressed protein.