• Analytical Science and Technology
• /
• v.36 no.5
• /
• pp.205-215
• /
• 2023

In the present study, an analytical method was proposed for detecting trifluralin in aquatic products at trace concentrations. The method employed QuEChERS (Quick, Easy, Cheap, Effective, Rugged, and Safe) and gas chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (GC-MS/MS) as the sample preparation and measurement, respectively. The effect of the aqueous phase volume used in the QuEChERS was demonstrated, and the ratio of 10:10 (mL) between water and acetonitrile phase was used for 5 g of sample. Besides, dSPE using C18 and primary-secondary amine (PSA) was applied to remove the potential interferences from the food matrices, indicating no remarkable analyte loss. The linear range was built up from 0.50 ㎍ L^-1 to 3.0 ㎍ L^-1 (R² = 0.9993). Other criteria, i.e., repeatability (RSD_r = 0.86-1.96 %), reproducibility (RSD_R = 1.09-2.01 %), and recovery (over 90 %), were in accordance with Appendix F of AOAC (2016) for method performance. Although no trifluralin was detected for the commercial samples (fish, shrimp, and breaded shrimp), the spiked samples performed favorable recoveries and precision.

• Journal of Life Science
• /
• v.20 no.5
• /
• pp.697-702
• /
• 2010

Ten farrow-finish farms participated in this seromonitoring that was conducted to investigate the porcine brucellosis situation in Korea. In total, eight (80.0%) of the 10 farms and 139 (24.0%) of 578 pigs tested showed a positive response in the Rose Bengal test (RBT). Seroprevalence levels were determined using RBT according to age; 35 (14.6%) of 239 piglets, 36 (31.3%) of 115 growing pigs, and 68 (30.4%) of 224 finishing pigs and sows were positive, respectively. All positive samples in RBT were tested with the tube agglutination test (TAT) and competitive ELISA (C-ELISA), simultaneously. Although 48 samples came up positive in the TAT, all samples tested with C-ELISA were negative. Among 26 rectal swab samples from the TAT positive-pigs, Yersinia enterocolitica O:9 was isolated from seven samples (26.9%). Therefore, we speculated that the positive reaction of RBT and TAT in this study might be induced by the serologically cross-reacting bacteria with Brucella abortus.

• Current Optics and Photonics
• /
• v.1 no.2
• /
• pp.118-124
• /
• 2017

Color rendering index (CRI) and luminous efficacy (LE) are two key performance factors of white LEDs (WLED). While most recent works in optics focus on methodology to improve these factors, little attention has been dedicated to chemical composition of materials. This paper studies the effect of $Sr_{2.4}1F_{2.59}B_{20.03}O_{74.8}:Eu_{0.12},Sm_{0.048}$ phosphor (SrSm), in terms of concentration and particle size on CRI and LE of 8500 K - WLEDs. Importantly, the molar mass of the componential ions in SrSm are calculated to shed light on the connection between the chemical composition of the material of interest and the performance of WLEDs. Results show that CRI can be improved to a value of around 86 by boosting red-light components in WLEDs, for all 3 major configurations: conformal, in-cup, and remote phosphor. CRI value tends to decrease with larger size of particles, while LE value goes in the reverse direction. On the other hand, both CRI and LE appear to be reduced at higher concentration of SrSm. This light attenuation is analyzed by using the Lambert-Beer law and Mie-scattering theory.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Service
• /
• v.30 no.4
• /
• pp.511-525
• /
• 2007

A seroprevalence study of small ruminant brucellosis was conducted in sheep and goat rearing selected areas of Mymensingh district and Dhaka district, Bangladesh, from March, 2005 to May, 2006. Sera from 62 sheep and 300 goats were tested by rose bengal plate test (RBPT), plate agglutination test (PAT), tube agglutination test (TAT) and mercaptoethanol test (MET). Out of the 62 sera tested 3.25% (n = 2) were positive to RBT, PAT and TAT and 4.84% (n = 3) were positive MET. In case of 300 goats, 1.67% (n = 5) were positive to RBT and PAT, 2% (n = 6) were positive to TAT and 2.33% (n = 7) were positive to MET. This investigation is the first of its type to be performed in small ruminants in Bangladesh. Higher prevalence rate (8.0 %) was found in BAU nutrition farm in case of sheep and 10 % in Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU) Veterinary Clinic in case of goat while lower prevalence (0.0 %) was recorded in Pharmacology project and BAU adjacent villages in case of sheep and (0.0 %) in Dhamrai upazila in case of goats respectively. Brucella antibodies were more prevalent in sheep (8.84 %) than in goat (2.33 %).

• BMB Reports
• /
• v.43 no.8
• /
• pp.561-566
• /
• 2010

Though protein transduction domains (PTDs) are well known for the delivery of exogenous therapeutic proteins into living cells, the overall low efficiency of transduction is a serious obstacle. We investigated the effect of bog blueberry anthocyanins (BBA) on protein transduction efficiency and found that BBA enhanced the transduction efficiencies of Tat-SOD fusion protein into HeLa cells and mice skin. The enzymatic activities in the cells and skin tissue in the presence of BBA were markedly increased compared to controls. Further, BBA did not demonstrate any cell toxicity at various concentrations. Although the mechanism is not fully understood, we suggest that BBA might alter the conformation of the membrane, which would indicate that BBA can be used as a protein transduction enhancer for the efficient delivery of therapeutic proteins for a variety of disorders.

• Analytical Science and Technology
• /
• v.37 no.2
• /
• pp.87-97
• /
• 2024

The appropriate intake of fluoride (F^-) is beneficial to human health; however, the over-consumption can result in various potentially harmful effects. This study compared different colorimetric reagents, i.e., aluminium-xylenol orange (Al-XO), zirconium-xylenol orange (Zr-XO), and zirconium-alizarin red S (Zr-ARS), for fluoride measurements by the UV-Vis, in terms of reaction mechanisms, method sensitivity, and interferences from aluminium and ferric ions. The colorimetric procedures were optimized, and the analytical methods were evaluated. The goodness of linearity (R² > 0.998) was obtained for all three assays within the concentration range of 1.0-20.0 mg/L fluoride in deionized water, in which the method sensitivity followed the descending order of Zr-XO > Al-XO > Zr-ARS. The Zr-XO was applied for determining the fluoride in different tea extracts in water (90 ℃ and 60-minute-brewing) and black tea demonstrated the highest fluoride content (3.0-3.6 mg/L). The effects of brewing time and temperature on the release of fluoride in the tea extracts were also investigated, indicating these are critical factors for the fluoride extraction. This study highlighted the application potentials of the UV-Vis measurement as a simple, convenient, and cheap analytical approach and discussed different colorimetric reagents used for fluoride determination in tea extracts in the context that the UV-Vis spectrophotometers are commonly equipped in most laboratories.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Research
• /
• v.44 no.3
• /
• pp.433-439
• /
• 2004

This study was carried out to investigate the efficacy of rifampin with or without streptomycin in male Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats experimentally inoculated with Brucella abortus. Thirty rats were intraperitoneally inoculated with $1.0{\times}10^9$colony-forming units of B. abortus. They were divided into 3 groups by treatment with antibiotic. 10 rats in Group A were orally administrated with rifampin, 10 rats in Group B with rifampin orally and with streptomycin intramuscularly over 12 weeks starting at 1 week post infection (PI). A placebo recipient in Group C was inoculated with sterile saline without antibiotics. All animals were monitored by tube agglutination test (TAT) and AMOS-PCR to evaluate the efficiency of the antibiotics to B. abortus infection. The antibody titers in Groups A, B and C were 1:400, 1:400 and 1:800 as measured by TAT at the first week PI, respectively. The antibody titer in Group A decreased to 1:100 by the 13th week PI. That in the control group was observed as high antibody titer until 13th weeks PI, but the antibody response in Group B was low(1:50) from the 5th week to the 13th week PI. AMOS-PCR there was evidence of relapse of B. abortus in group A in liver and spleen specimens at the 13th week PI. B. abortus DNA was detected in Group C in liver and spleen specimens from the 1st week to 13th week PI by AMOS-PCR. However AMOS-PCR could not detect any organism in Group B from the 3rd week PI until the end of the study. This study demonstrated that administration of a combination of rifampin and streptomycin was more efficacious than administration of rifampin alone. A significant reduction in antibody titer was observed when a combination of 15 mg/kg/day of rifampin per os and 15 mg/kg/day streptomycin intramuscularly was used in comparison with the antibody of control group.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
• /
• v.51 no.4
• /
• pp.507-516
• /
• 2023

Eradication of Helicobacter pylori infection is an essential strategy to decrease the risk of developing gastric cancer. However, the standard triple therapy has negative aspects associated with side effects and the emergence of antibiotic resistance. Therefore, alternative therapies are required to enhance the management of H. pylori infection effectively. In this study we examined the effect of emodin on the amelioration of inflammatory response due to H. pylori infection. Our results indicated that emodin treatment effectively decreased the expression of virulence genes, including sabA, vacA, cagL, cagA, sabA, and suppressed the adhesion ability of H. pylori to AGS cells. Emodin has been shown inhibitory effects on the inflammasome pathway through reductions in VacA translocation, lowering ROS stress, cleaved Caspase-1, NLRP3, and cleaved Gasdermin D levels, thereby lowered pyroptosis in infected cells. In summary, our study demonstrated that emodin has the ability to attenuate inflammation caused by H. pylori by modulating virulence gene expression and decreasing VacA translocation. Further study is required to evaluate the therapeutic efficacy of emodin in treating H. pylori infection and better understand the underlying mechanisms.

• BMB Reports
• /
• v.53 no.5
• /
• pp.248-253
• /
• 2020

Gene expression in HIV-1 is regulated by the promoters in 5' long-terminal repeat (LTR) element, which contain multiple DNA regulatory elements that serve as binding sites for cellular transcription factors. YY1 could repress HIV-1 gene expression and latent infection. Here, however, we observed that virus production can be increased by YY1 over-expression and decreased under YY1 depleted condition by siRNA treatment. To identify functional domain(s) of YY1 activation, we constructed a number of YY1 truncated mutants. Our data show that full-length YY1 enhances the viral transcription both through U3 and U3RU5 promoters. Moreover, the C-terminal region (296-414 residues) of YY1 is responsible for the transcriptional upregulation, which could be enhanced further in the presence of the viral Tat protein. The central domain of YY1 (155-295 residues) does not affect LTR activity but has a negative effect on HIV-1 gene expression. Taken together, our study shows that YY1 could act as a transcriptional activator in HIV-1 replication, at least in the early stages of infection.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
• /
• v.44 no.2
• /
• pp.66-74
• /
• 2012

Test turnaround time (TAT) is the lead time from reception to reporting. In the complete blood cell count (CBC), 4 units of the XE-2100 (Sysmex Corp., Japan) processed around 80% of quantity, 1 unit of the LH-780 (Beckman-Coulter Incorp., USA) processed around 10% and 1 unit of ADVIA-2120 (Siemens AG, Munich, Germany) processed around 10%. We analyzed the change in the TAT for the CBC for over 7 years, from January of 2005 to December of 2011. The delta check made alterations of delta to WBC, hemoglobin, hematocrit, platelet and metamyelocyte, however, did not made them to band neutrophil, eosinophil, basophil and monocyte. The panic value check made alterations of panic value to hemoglobin, hematocrit, platelet and monocyte. In the criteria of currently slide review, LH-780 and ADVI-2120 analyzers prepared suspect flags of "Blast, Imm NE2, Immature granulocyte, Imm NE1, Left shift, Variant lymphocyte, Atypical lymphocyte, Platelet clumps and NRBC". The New slide review in the XE-2100 analyzer altered the preparations of a smear slide more than a "Platelet clumps flag(${\geq}200unit$), a single flag excluding the "Platelet clumps flag (${\geq}250unit$) and a multiple flag (${\geq}200unit$)". Also, below the 240 unit, medical technologists prepared manual slides selectively according to their evaluations. The automatic reporting rate was 33.4% without alterations, whereas it was 41.0% without alterations, and was thus improved by 7.6%. The slide review rate was 15.2% before using the Q-flag limit, whereas it was 12.1% for a reduce 3.1%. TAT was 45 minutes without the creation alterations of the delta and panic value checks, whereas it was 35 minutes after making alterations of the delta and panic value checks and thus was shortened by 10 minutes. We came to the conclusion that the establishment and operation of delta and panic value checks and slide review criteria suitable for laboratory environment can reduce unnecessary smear slides, re-checking, re-sampling, re-testing, telephone inquiries and concentrated workloads during specific times of the day.