• Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.12-17
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• 2016

Neuroinflammation is one of important allostatic loads contributory to the various psychiatric illness. It is mediated mainly by glial cells, which produce both proinflammatory and antiinflammatory cytokines, and the balance of them determines the inflammatory process in the central nervous system. S100 calcium-binding protein B, which is used as an inflammatory marker is also released by glial cells. In the molecular level, oxidative stress contributes to the neuroinflammation. Their disturbances have been revealed in the psychiatric illness and related with the dysregulation of the glutamatergic and monoaminergic systems. There is a possibility to use them as disease markers. The approach for inflammation using antiinflammatory drugs and antioxidants could be connected to the development of disease-modifying treatments. Also, a searching examination about specific subtypes who are vulnerable to inflammation in the patients is required to confirm their efficacy clearly.

• Rapid Communication in Photoscience
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.56-59
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• 2013

Plant phytochromes, molecular light switches that regulate various aspects of plant growth and development, are known as autophosphorylating serine/threonine kinases. Although recent studies reveal that phytochrome autophosphorylation plays an important role in the regulation of phytochrome signaling through the control of phyA protein stability, the in vivo functional roles of phytochrome kinase activity in plant light signaling are largely unknown. Thus, it is necessary to investigate the detailed function of phytochrome as a protein kinase, which might include mapping of kinase domain on the phytochrome molecule, searching for substrates that could be phosphorylated by phyA, and in vivo functional analysis of the kinase activity with phytochrome mutants displaying reduced kinase activity. Our recent studies reveal that the kinase activity of phytochrome plays a positive role in plant light signaling. Therefore, we highlight the current knowledge about the functional roles of phytochrome kinase activity in the light signal transduction of plants, based on our recent results.

• YAKHAK HOEJI
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• v.40 no.6
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• pp.632-639
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• 1996

Most stable conformers of some antiinflammatory fenamates were obtained by conformational free energy change calculations. Conformational energies for the molecules as unhydrate d state were estimated first, and those as hydrated state were calculated then to simulate the molecules in aqueous solution using a hydration shell model. The initial geometries of the molecules were obtained either from X-ray crystallographic data or from homologous molecular fragments. The bond lengths and angles were not varied, but all the torsion angles were varied step by step during the conformational free energy surface searching. The results show that there are several feasible conformations for a compound. And the molecules are somewhat stabilized by hydration (-${\delta}G_{hyd}{\cong}$13 to 16kcal/mole), but the conformations were not changed significantly by the hydration itself. There seems to be a strong tendency of intramolecular hydrogen bonding between imino hydrogen and carboxyl oxygen of the compounds. As a result, the carboxyl group cannot be rotated freely, and the rotation of the second aromatic ring is the main reason for the conformational variations of the compounds. The ECEPP force fields via the program CONBIO were used throughout this study.

• Preventive Nutrition and Food Science
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.257-261
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• 2005

Marine sponges are known to produce a number of cytotoxic secondary metabolites. In the course of searching for cytotoxic metabolites from marine organisms, we have evaluated cytotoxic activities of six marine secondary metabolites isolated from various sponges. The cytotoxic compounds 1-6 were isolated by the application of various chromatographic methods, including column chromatography and HPLC. The molecular structures were mostly determined using mass spectrometry (MS) and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Spectroscopy. Furanosestererpenes (compounds 1-3) from Psammocinia sp., cyclitol derivatives (compounds 4 and 5) from Sarcotragus sp., and bromotyrosine-type compound (6) from an association of two sponges Jaspis wondoensis and Poecillastra wondoensis were evaluated for their cytotoxic activity against three cancer cell lines; Hep G2, HeLa, and MCF-7. All tested compounds exhibited cyctoxicity at concentrations ranging from $5\;\mug/mL\;to\;25\;\mug/mL.$ Particularly, among the tested compounds, compound 6 showed the highest potency displaying at least $80\%$ of cytotoxicity at $5\;\mug/mL$ level against all three cancer cell lines.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.125-131
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• 1995

A 3, 346 bp of the cdd upstream region in Bacillus subtilis was sequenced from the pSO1 (Song BH and J Neuhard. 1989. Mol. Gen. Genet 216: 462-468) and sequence homology was searched to the known genes in Genbank and European Molecular Biology Laboratory databanks. Five complete and one truncated putative coding sequences deduced from the nucleotide sequence were found through the ORF searching by Genetyx and Macvector software, and one of them was identified as the dgk (diacylglycerol kinase) gene and another, a truncated one, as the phoH (phosphate starvation-inducible gene) gene. The B. subtilis dgk gene, having a role for response to several environmental stress signals, revealed an open reading frame of 134 amino acids with 43.1% of sequence identity to the Streptococcus mutans dgk gene. The carboxy terminal 59 residues of the truncated phoH gene showed 52.7% and 34.5% of sequence identity in amino acids with the corresponding genes of Mycobacterium leprae and Escherichia coli. The four remaining coding sequences consisting of 115, 421, 91, and 91 residues were thought to be unknown ORFs because they have no significant similarity to known genes.

• BMB Reports
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• v.46 no.7
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• pp.346-351
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• 2013

Although there have been many studies of native Korean cattle, Hanwoo, there have been no selective sweep studies in these animals. This study was performed to characterize genetic variation and identify selective signatures. We sequenced the genomes of 12 cattle, and identified 15125420 SNPs, 1768114 INDELs, and 3445 CNVs. The SNPs, INDELs, and CNVs were similarly distributed throughout the genome, and highly variable regions were shown to contain the BoLA family and GPR180, which are related to adaptive immunity. We also identified the domestication footprints of the Hanwoo population by searching for selective sweep signatures, which revealed the RCN2 gene related to BPV resistance. The results of this study may contribute to genetic improvement of the Hanwoo population in Korea.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.211-217
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• 2021

The treatments of nervous system diseases (NSDs) have long been difficult issues for researchers because of their complexity of pathogenesis. With the advent of aging society, searching for effective treatments of NSDs has become a hot topic. Ginseng polysaccharides (GP), as the main biologically active substance in ginseng, has various biological properties in immune-regulation, anti-oxidant, anti-inflammation and etc. Considering the association between the effects of GP and the pathogenesis of neurological disorders, many related experiments have been conducted in recent years. In this paper, we reviewed previous studies about the effects and mechanisms of GP on diseases related to nervous system. We found GP play an ameliorative role on NSDs through the regulation of immune system, inflammatory response, oxidative damage and signaling pathway. Structure-activity relationship was also discussed and summarized. In addition, we provided new insights into GP as promising neuroprotective agent for its further development and utilization.

• Food Science and Preservation
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.350-354
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• 2005

It was carried out for development of natural antimicrobial on Scutellariae Radix by measuring the general nutritional composition and mineral contents. This study analyzed it with LC-MS to identify antimicrobial activity substance in the Scutellariae Radix extract, its content was analyzed using HPLC. The searching substance was examined antimicrobial activity by disk method. The approximate composition of Scutellariae Radix was $8.93\%$ of moisture, $4.13\%$ of crude ash, $15.30\%$ of crude protein, $3.71\%$ of crude fat, $67.93\%$ of carbohydrate, respectively. Scutellariae Radix was contained high contents of minerals such as K(12,050 mg/kg),. Mg(4,295 mg/kg), remarkably. It was identified that molecular weight 445' peak was baicalin, molecular weight 283' peak was wogonin and molecular weight 269' peak was baicalein on Scutellariae Radix extract Baicalin showed remarkable antimicrobial activity against V. parahaemolyticus and L monocytogenes when examined by disk method, which was estimated antimicrobial activity substance in the Scutellariae Radix extract. The content of baicalin was $0.75\%$(with D.W.) and $0.82\%$(with methanol) in the Scutellariae Radix extract using HPLC.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.94-100
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• 2022

Chronic infection by hepatitis B virus (HBV) greatly increases the risk for liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The outcome of HBV infection is shaped by the complex interplay of the mode of transmission, host genetic factors, viral genotype, adaptive mutations, and environmental factors. The pregenomic RNA transcription of HBV for their replication is regulated by the core promoter activation. Core promoter mutations have been the reason for acute liver failure and are associated with HCC development. We obtained HBV genes from a patient in Myanmar who was infected with HBV and identified gene variations in the core promoter region. For measuring the relative transactivation activity of the core promoter, we prepared the core-promoter reporter construct. Among the gene variations of the core promoter, the mutations of C1731T and G1806A were associated with increase in the transactivation of the HBV core promoter. Through computer analysis for searching for a tentative transcription factor binding site, we showed that the mutations of C1713T and G1806A newly created C/EBPβ and XBP1-responsive elements of the core promoter, respectively. The ectopic expression of C/EBPβ largely increased the HBV core promoter containing the C1713T mutation and that of XBP1 activated the M95 promoter containing the G1806A mutation. Our efforts to treat and prevent HBV infections are hampered by the emergence of drug-resistant mutations and vaccine-escape mutations. Our results provide the biological properties and clinical significance of specific HBV core promoter mutations.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.38 no.6
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• pp.548-561
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• 2015

By combining conventional single cell analysis with flow cytometry and public database searches with bioinformatics tools, we extended the expression profiling of thymic stromal cotransporter (TSCOT), Slc46A2/Ly110, that was shown to be expressed in bipotent precursor and cortical thymic epithelial cells. Genome scale analysis verified TSCOT expression in thymic tissue- and cell type- specific fashion and is also expressed in some other epithelial tissues including skin and lung. Coexpression profiling with genes, Foxn1 and Hoxa3, revealed the role of TSCOT during the organogenesis. TSCOT expression was detected in all thymic epithelial cells (TECs), but not in the $CD31^+$endothelial cell lineage in fetal thymus. In addition, ABC transporter-dependent side population and Sca-$1^+$ fetal TEC populations both contain TSCOT-expressing cells, indicating TEC stem cells express TSCOT. TSCOT expression was identified as early as in differentiating embryonic stem cells. TSCOT expression is not under the control of Foxn1 since TSCOT is present in the thymic rudiment of nude mice. By searching variations in the expression levels, TSCOT is positively associated with Grhl3 and Irf6. Cytokines such as IL1b, IL22 and IL24 are the potential regulators of the TSCOT expression. Surprisingly, we found TSCOT expression in the lung is diminished in lung cancers, suggesting TSCOT may be involved in the suppression of lung tumor development. Based on these results, a model for TEC differentiation from the stem cells was proposed in context of multiple epithelial organ formation.