• BMB Reports
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• v.49 no.6
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• pp.311-318
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• 2016

Innate immune responses are primary, relatively limited, and specific responses to numerous pathogens and toxic molecules. Protein expression involved in these innate responses must be tightly regulated at both transcriptional level and post-transcriptional level to avoid the development of excessive inflammation that can be potentially harmful to the host. MicroRNAs are small noncoding RNAs (∼22 nucleotides [nts]) that participate in the regulation of numerous physiological responses by targeting specific messenger RNAs to suppress their translation. Recent work has shown that several negative regulators of transcription including microRNAs play important roles in inhibiting the exacerbation of inflammatory responses and in the maintenance of immunological homeostasis. This emerging research area will provide new insights on how microRNAs regulate innate immune signaling. It might show that dysregulation of microRNA synthesis is associated with the pathogenesis of inflammatory and infectious diseases. In this review, we focused on miR-146 and miR-125 and described the roles these miRNAs in modulating innate immune signaling. These microRNAs can control inflammatory responses and the outcomes of pathogenic infections.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.224-232
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• 2016

The methodology to visualize the shape of blood vessel and its blood flow have been attracting as a very interesting problem to forecast and examinate a disease in thrombus precursor protein. May previous visualization researches have been appeared for designing the blood vessel and also modeling the blood flow using a doppler imaging technique which is one of nondestructive testing techniques. General visualization methods are to depict the blood flow obtained from doppler effects with fragmentary stream lines and also visualize the blood flow model using volume rendering. However, these visualizeation techniques have the disadvantage which a set of small line segments does not give the overall observation of blood flows. Therefore, we propose a visualization system which reconstruct the continuity of the blood flow obtained from doppler effects and also visualize the blood flow with the vector field of blood particles. This system will use doppler phase difference from medical equipments such as OCT with low penetration and reconstruct the blood flow by the curvature estimation from vector field of each blood particle.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.367-374
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• 2016

Since the RNA world hypothesis was proposed, a large number of regulatory noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) have been identified in many species, ranging from microorganisms to mammals. During the characterization of these newly discovered RNAs, RNAs having both coding and noncoding functions were discovered, and these were considered bifunctional RNAs. The recent use of computational and high-throughput experimental approaches has revealed increasing evidence of various sources of bifunctional RNAs, such as protein-coding mRNAs with a noncoding isoform and long ncRNAs bearing a small open reading frame. Therefore, the genomic diversity of Janusfaced RNA molecules that have dual characteristics of coding and noncoding indicates that the functional roles of RNAs have to be revisited in cells on a genome-wide scale. Such studies would allow us to further understand the complex gene-regulatory network in cells. In this review, we discuss three major genomic sources of bifunctional RNAs and present a handful of examples of bifunctional RNA along with their functional roles.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.35 no.9
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• pp.2655-2659
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• 2014

Dual specificity protein phosphatase 4 (DUSP4) has been considered a promising target for the development of therapeutics for various human cancers. Here, we report the first example for a successful application of the structure-based virtual screening to identify the novel small-molecule DUSP4 inhibitors. As a consequence of the virtual screening with the modified scoring function to include an effective molecular solvation free energy term, five micromolar DUSP4 inhibitors are found with the associated $IC_{50}$ values ranging from 3.5 to $10.8{\mu}M$. Because these newly identified inhibitors were also screened for having desirable physicochemical properties as a drug candidate, they may serve as a starting point of the structure-activity relationship study to optimize the medical efficacy. Structural features relevant to the stabilization of the new inhibitors in the active site of DUSP4 are discussed in detail.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.13 no.9
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• pp.4689-4693
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• 2012

Lung cancer is the most common type of cancer and one of the leading causes of death in the world. Genetic factors play an important role in its development. PDCD6, the encoding gene for programmed cell death protein 6, may function as a tumor suppressor gene. Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) contributes about 80% to newly histologically diagnosed lung cancer patients. To explore the relationship between PDCD6 and NSCLC, we examined two single nucleotide polymorphisms(rs3756712 G/T andrs4957014 G/T, both in the intron region) of the PDCD6gene.A hospital-based case-control study was carried out including 302 unrelated NSCLC patients and 306 healthy unrelated subjects. Significantly increased NSCLC risk was found to be associated with the T allele of rs4957014 (P=0.027, OR=0.760, 95%CI=0.596-0.970). The genotype and allele frequencies of rs3756712 did not shown any significant difference between NSCLC group and controls (P=0.327, OR=0.879, 95%CI=0.679-1.137). In conclusion, we firstly demonstrated the association between the PDCD6 gene and risk of NSCLC in a Chinese Han population.

• Korean Journal of Plant Resources
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.644-668
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• 2019

Dysphania ambrosioides (L.) Mosyakin & Clemants which belongs to Chenopodiaceae/Amaranthaceae sensu in APG system has been known as a useful plant in various fields as well as an invasive species spreading all over the world. To understand its phylogenetic relationship with neighbour species, we completed chloroplast genome of D. ambrosioides collected in Korea. Its length is 151,689 bp consisting of four sub-regions: 83,421 bp of large single copy (LSC) and 18,062 bp of small single copy (SSC) regions are separated by 25,103 bp of inverted repeat (IR) regions. 128 genes (84 protein-coding genes, eight rRNAs, and 36 tRNAs) were annotated. The overall GC content of the chloroplast genome is 36.9% and those in the LSC, SSC and IR regions are 34.9%, 30.3%, and 42.7%, respectively. Distribution of simple sequence repeats are similar to those of the other two Dysphania chloroplasts; however, different features can be utilized for population genetics. Nucleotide diversity of Dysphania chloroplast genomes 18 genes including two ribosomal RNAs contains high nucleotide diversity peaks, which may be genus or species-specific manner. Phylogenetic tree presents that D. ambrosioides occupied a basal position in genus Dysphania and phylogenetic relation of tribe level is presented clearly with complete chloroplast genomes.

• Journal of Integrative Natural Science
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.95-104
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• 2017

Proviral Integration site of Moloney (Pim) murine Leukemia virus kinases is a serine/threonine specific protein kinase. It is largely involved in cell survival and proliferation. Pim-1 phosphorylates multiple cellular substrates to inhibit apoptosis and promote cell cycle progression. Over expression of Pim-1 kinase is observed in a range of malignancies and various solid cancers. High level of Pim-1 expression is seen in myeloma, acute myeloid leukemia, prostate cancer and liver carcinomas. Hence, Pim-1 is considered as an interesting cancer target. In the present study, we have performed region-focused CoMFA study on a series of imidazopyridazine derivatives as Pim-1 kinase inhibitors. A statistically acceptable region-focused CoMFA model ($q^2=0.571$; ONC=3; $r^2=0.909$) was developed. The model was then validated using Bootsrapping and progressive sampling. The contour map highlighted the regions favorable to increase the activity. Bulky substitutions in $R^2$ position of the phenyl ring could increase the activity. Similarly, small negative substitution in the $R^1$ position of the Pyridine ring could increase the activity considerably. Our results will be useful to design novel Pim-1 kinase inhibitors of this series.

• Journal of Radiopharmaceuticals and Molecular Probes
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.54-58
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• 2017

Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry(MALDI-TOF MS) is one of the powerful methods that enable analysis of small molecules as well as large molecules up to about 500,000 Da without severe fragmentation. MALDI-TOF MS, thus, has been a very useful an analytical tool for the confirmation of synthetic molecules, probing PTMs, and identifying structures of a given protein. In recent nuclear medicine, MALDI-TOF MS liner ion mode helps researcher calculate the average number of chelator(or linkage) per an antibody conjugate, such as DOTA-(or DFO-) trastuzumab for labeling a medical radioisotope. This simple technique can be utilized to improve the labeling method and control the quality at the development of antibody-based radiopharmaceuticals, which is very effected to diagnosis and therapy for in vivo tumor cells, with radioisotopes like $^{89}Zr$, $^{64}Cu$, and 177Lu. To minimize the error, MALDI-TOF MS measurement is repeatedly performed for each sample in this study, and external calibration is carried out after data collection.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.223-229
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• 2020

Here magnetic iron oxide particles (MIOPs) were synthesized under atmospheric air and which size was controlled by regulating the flow rate of alkali addition and used for efficient removal of bovine serum albumin (BSA) from water. The MIOPs were characterized using field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), Fourier transformation-Infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM). The results revealed a successful preparation of the MIOPs. The removal efficiency for BSA using MIOPs was found to be about 100% at lower concentrations (≥ 10 mg/L). The maximum adsorption of 64.7 mg/g for BSA was achieved as per the Langmuir adsorption model. In addition, microfiltration membrane for removal of BSA as model protein organic foulant is also studied. The effect of various MIOPs adsorbent sizes of 210, 680 and 1130 nm on the absorption capacity of BSA was investigated. Water permeability of the BSA integrated with the smallest size MIOPs membrane was increased by approximately 22% compared by the neat BSA membrane during dead-end filtration. Furthermore, the presence of small size MIOPs were also effective in increasing the permeate flux.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.293-297
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• 2009

Improved methods for detection of Cryptosporidium oocysts in environmental and clinical samples are urgently needed to improve detection of cryptosporidiosis. We compared the sensitivity of 7 PCR primer sets for detection of Cryptosporidium parvum. Each target gene was amplified by PCR or nested PCR with serially diluted DNA extracted from purified C. parvum oocysts. The target genes included Cryptosporidium oocyst wall protein (COWP), small subunit ribosomal RNA (SSU rRNA), and random amplified polymorphic DNA. The detection limit of the PCR method ranged from $10^3$ to $10^4$ oocysts, and the nested PCR method was able to detect $10^0$ to $10^2$ oocysts. A second-round amplification of target genes showed that the nested primer set specific for the COWP gene proved to be the most sensitive one compared to the other primer sets tested in this study and would therefore be useful for the detection of C. parvum.