• Korean Journal of Veterinary Research
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.305-313
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• 2006

The primary goal of the wound healing is rapid wound closure. Recent advances in cellular and molecular biology have greatly expanded our understanding of the biologic processes involved in wound repair and tissue regeneration. This study was conducted to develop a new sponge type of biomaterial to be used for either wound dressing or scaffold for tissue engineering. We designed to make a comparative study of the wound healing effect of silk fibroin/hyaluronic acid (SF/HA) blend sponge in full-thickness dermal injury model of rat. Two full-thickness excisions were made on the back of the experimental animals. The excised wound was covered with either the silk fibroin (SF), hyaluronic acid (HA) or SF/HA (7 : 3 or 5 : 5 ratio) blend sponge. On the postoperative days of 3, 7, 10 and 14, the wound area was calculated by image analysis software. Simultaneously, the tissues were stained with Hematoxylin-Eosin and Masson's trichrome methods to measure the area of regenerated epithelium and collagen deposition. In addition, we evaluated the degree of the epithelial cell proliferation using immunohistochemistry for proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA). We found that the half healing time ($HT_{50}$) of SF/HA blend sponge treated groups were significantly decreased as compared with either those of SF or HA treatment group. Furthermore, SF/HA blend sponges significantly increased the size of epithelialization and collagen deposition as well as the number of PCNA positive cells on epidermal basement membrane as compared with those of control treatment. Especially, the 5 : 5 ratio group of SF/HA among all treatment groups was most effective on wound healing rate and histological studies. These results suggest that SF/HA blend sponges could accelerate the wound healing process through the increase of epithelialization, collagen deposition and basal cell proliferation in full thickness skin injury.

• Journal of Marine Bioscience and Biotechnology
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.63-70
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• 2006

Natural product compounds are the source of numerous therapeutic agents. The marine environment produces natural products from a variety of structural classes exhibiting activity against numerous disease targets including anticancer agents. Among these, pectenotoxin-2 (PTX-2), which was first identified as a cytotoxic entity in marine sponges, which depolymerizes actin filaments, was found to be highly effective and more potent to activate an intrinsic pathway of apoptosis in p53-deficient tumor cells compared to those with functional p53 both in vitro and in vivo. However, the anti-proliferative mechanism of the compound at non-cytotoxic concentrations has not yet been explored. In the current study, we sought to investigate anti-proliferation and apoptosis of PTX-2 against U937 human leukemic cells and its underlying molecular mechanism. Exposure of U937 cells to PTX-2 resulted in growth inhibition and induction of apoptosis in dose- and time-dependent manner as measured by MTT assay, fluorescent microscopy and flow cytometric analysis. The anti-proliferative effect of PTX-2 was associated with a marked increase in the expression of cyclin-dependent kinase p21 (WAF1/CIP1) mRNA which was tumor suppressor p53-independent. The increase in apoptosis was connected with a time-dependent down-regulation of anti-apoptotic Bcl-XL and inhibitor of apoptosis proteins (IAPs) family such as XIAP and cIAP-2. Though additional studies are needed, these findings suggested that PTX-2-induced inhibition of U937 cells was associated with the induction of apoptotic cell death and the results provided important new insights into the possible molecular mechanisms of the anti-cancer activity of PTX-2.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.308-311
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• 2010

An experiment was conducted using indigenous Kivircik ewes to evaluate the effect of intravaginal progestagen sponges, containing 30 mg of fluorogestone acetate (FGA), followed by administration of pregnant mare serum gonadotrophin (PMSG) on inducing synchronized oestrus in the season and fertility. Three times of PMSG administration relative to sponge withdrawal (24 h before (n = 30), at (n = 29) or 24 h after (n= 29)) and two routes of PMSG administration (intramuscular (n = 46) and subcutaneous (n = 42) were compared for estrous response, number of multiple births and fecundity rates. There were no significant differences in terms of estrous response, due to differences in the time and route of PMSG administration. Lambing percentage, proportion of multiple births and fecundity were 75.6, 51.6 and 114.6%, respectively. The administration had a significant effect on lambing (p<0.05), multiple birth and fecundity rates (p<0.01). The subcutaneous administration of PMSG resulted in a significantly higher lambing rate (p<0.05) and fecundity rate (p<0.01), compared to the intramuscular injection of the PMSG.

• Animal Systematics, Evolution and Diversity
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.155-159
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• 2004

A new species of the genus Jaspis (Demospongiae: Astrophorida: Ancorinidae), Jaspis coreana n. sp., is described on the specimen collected from Geomundo Island, Korea during September 1995 to March 2002 by SCUBA diving. This new species is characterized by two sponges association which is completely covered with Poecilastra wondoensis except for oscules. This new species is similar to J. wondoensis in its spicules type, but different in their spicules size, form of oscules and sponge colour. J. coreana has a large oxyasters and longer megascleres than J. wondoensis, oscule cluster and golden yellow colour in life.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Sericultural Science Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.55-56
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• 2003

Silk fibroin (SF) is one of the typical protein polymer produced by silkworm, Bombyx mori. SF has been used as textile fiber and surgical suture fur thousands of years due to its unique gloss, handle, and mechanical properties. Recently, SF has been intensively studied to diverse usage for biotechlological and biomedical fields because of their reproducibility, environmental compatibility, non-toxicity, and biological compatibility. Based on its biocompatibility, the possible uses of regenerated SF have been proposed including substrate for cell culture[1], enzyme immobilization[2], and matrix for drug release[3]. (omitted)

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.24-29
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• 2012

Recently, in the movie theater, the special chair is installed to maximize the viewing effect of movies. It is structured to convey a vibrational stimulus to a specially-designated parts of human body by attaching a vibration transducer to a existing theater chair. This paper describes the analysis of the vibration transfer characteristic of a foaming sponge seat for the design of the special chair. We could not apply the structural analysis S/W because it is difficult to obtain the mechanical properties and damping coefficients of the various type sponges. And then we computed the transfer functions by the global curve fitting program based on experimental modal analysis. The experimental response results comparatively coincide with those by the global curve fitting program. We also could obtain the natural frequencies, the modal damping coefficient ratio, the modal vectors and the whole transfer functions. Therefore we could analyze the dynamic characteristic for design of foaming sponge seat.

• Natural Product Sciences
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.272-276
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• 2004

During the course of our screening for bioactive metabolites from marine sponges, EZZ, the inseparable 1:1 mixture of (8E,13Z,20Z)-strobilinin and (7E,13Z,20Z)-felixinin has been found to deliver significant cytotoxicity against some cancer cell lines. In this study, the antioxidant activity of EZZ was first time evaluated by a series of antioxidant assays. It was found that EZZ was weak in scavenging the stable free radical 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhyrazyl (DPPH), but it was comparable to ascorbic acid in scavenging ABTS and superoxide radicals. In addition, EZZ could protect DNA from hydroxyl radical-induced strand cleavage. The findings of the present study suggest that EZZ possess certain antioxidant activity, which might help to prevent occurrence of cancer by alleviating the oxidative stress in cells.

• Toxicological Research
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• v.17
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• pp.105-108
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• 2001

Several marine toxins with macrolide structure have been found to act on actin. One of these toxins is mycalolide B isolated from the genus Mycale. This compound belongs to macrolide antibiotics and consists of tris-oxazole with strong cytotoxic activity ($IC_{50}$: 10-50 nM for growth of L1210 murine leukemia cells). This compound was found to be an actin-depolymerizing agent with the mode of action distinct from that of the known actin inhibitor, cytochalasin D. Tolytoxin, a macrolide isolated from cyano-bacteria with similar chemical structure to mycalolide B, seems to have similar effect. Another macrolide compound, aplyronine A, showed the effects similar to those of mycalolide B. Although bistheonellide A, a dimeric macrolide, did not show a severing effect, it de polymerized F-actin and sequestered G-actin by forming 1 : 2 complex with G-actins. Swinholide A has a structure and effects similar to those of bistheonel-lide A. In conclusion, mycalolide B, tolytoxin, aplyronine A, bistheonellide A and swinholide A are the members of "actin de polymerizing macrolide" the mechanism of which is different from that of cytochalasin D.halasin D.

• Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.215-222
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• 2014

To explore marine microorganisms with medical potential, we isolated and identified marine bacteria from floats, marine algae, animals, and sponges collected from Jeju Island, Korea. We isolated and identified 21 different strains from the marine samples by 16S rRNA analysis, cultured them in marine broth, and extracted them with ethyl acetate (EtOAc) to collect secondary metabolite fractions. Next, we evaluated their anti-oxidative and anti-inflammatory effects. Among the 21 strains, the secondary metabolite fraction of Bacillus badius had both strong antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity, and thus was selected for further experiments. An antioxidant compound detected from the secondary metabolite fraction of B. badius was purified by preparative centrifugal partition chromatography (n-hexane:EtOAc:methanol:water, 4:6:4:6, v/v), and identified as diolmycin A2. Additionally, diolmycin A2 strongly inhibited nitric oxide production. Thus, we successfully identified a significant bioactive compound from B. badius among the bacterial strains collected from Jeju Island.

• Animal Systematics, Evolution and Diversity
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.245-250
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• 2001

Two new species of the genus Psammocinia (Dictyoceratida, Irciniidae), P. bergquisti n. sp. and P. gageoensis n. sp., are described from Gageodo Island (Sohuksando Island), Korea. P. bergquisti n. sp. is characterized by the thumb like appearance and secondary fibre which makes a broad plate or secondary web while other known species in Psammocinia has many narrow and simple secondary fibres. P. gageoensis n. sp. is very similar to P. mosulpia Sim 1998 in shape, but primary fibre of the new species has more complex fascicles and it is difficult to see the detritus in the fibre. The primary fibre of this new species is cored with the smaller sand than that of P. mosulpia.