• BMB Reports
• /
• v.42 no.8
• /
• pp.493-499
• /
• 2009

MicroRNAs (miRs) are a family of small noncoding RNAs that regulate gene expression by targeting mRNAs in a sequence specific manner, inducing translational repression or mRNA degradation. In this paper we have first analyzed by microarray the miR-profile in erythroid precursor cells from one normal and two thalassemic patients expressing different levels of fetal hemoglobin (one of them displaying HPFH phenotype). The microarray data were confirmed by RT-PCR analysis, and allowed us to identify miR-210 as an highly expressed miR in the erythroid precursor cells from the HPFH patient. When RT-PCR was performed on mithramycin-induced K562 cells and erythroid precursor cells, miR-210 was found to be induced in time-dependent and dose-dependent fashion, together with increased expression of the fetal $\gamma$-globin genes. Altogether, the data suggest that miR-210 might be involved in increased expression of $\gamma$-globin genes in differentiating erythroid cells.

• Biomedical Science Letters
• /
• v.29 no.4
• /
• pp.280-286
• /
• 2023

In humic substances, fulvic acid (FA) is a subclass of diverse compounds known as humic substances, which are by-products of organic degradation from microorganisms. FA can suppress the proliferation of tumor cells. Despite numerous studies, the exact mechanism for the various effects of FA is not clearly understood. Based on results demonstrating anti-proliferation effects on human cancer, we investigated whether FA has similar effects on lung cancer in this study. Firstly, the anti-cancer effect of FA in pulmonary epithelial tumor cell lines (TC-1 cells) was examined by confirming its inhibitory effect on the cell proliferation of TC-1 cells. TC-1 cell proliferation was reduced by FA on a dose-dependent and time-dependent manner. After 24 hours of FA treatment, cell morphological changes such as cell volume decrease, non-adherence and increased number of apoptotic cells were clearly observed. In addition, FA induced a DNA ladder pattern by increased of DNA fragments in TC-1 cells. In the intracellular regulatory pathway by FA, we confirmed that FA induced the reduction of the anti-apoptotic protein, Bcl-2 protein levels. These results indicate that FA has anticancer effect by inducing intracellular apoptotic pathway. Further research on the mechanism of anticancer effects will be basic data for the development of potential anticancer drugs.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
• /
• v.52 no.5
• /
• pp.459-469
• /
• 2014

Entamoeba histolytica is a tissue-invasive protozoan parasite causing dysentery in humans. During infection of colonic tissues, amoebic trophozoites are able to kill host cells via apoptosis or necrosis, both of which trigger IL-8-mediated acute inflammatory responses. However, the signaling pathways involved in host cell death induced by E. histolytica have not yet been fully defined. In this study, we examined whether calpain plays a role in the cleavage of pro-survival transcription factors during cell death of colonic epithelial cells, induced by live E. histolytica trophozoites. Incubation with amoebic trophozoites induced activation of m-calpain in a time- and dose-dependent manner. Moreover, incubation with amoebae resulted in marked degradation of STAT proteins (STAT3 and STAT5) and NF-${\kappa}B$ (p65) in Caco-2 cells. However, $I{\kappa}B$, an inhibitor of NF-${\kappa}B$, was not cleaved in Caco-2 cells following adherence of E. histolytica. Entamoeba-induced cleavage of STAT proteins and NF-${\kappa}B$ was partially inhibited by pretreatment of cells with a cell-permeable calpain inhibitor, calpeptin. In contrast, E. histolytica did not induce cleavage of caspase-3 in Caco-2 cells. Furthermore, pretreatment of Caco-2 cells with a calpain inhibitor, calpeptin (but not the pan-caspase inhibitor, z-VAD-fmk) or m-calpain siRNA partially reduced Entamoeba-induced DNA fragmentation in Caco-2 cells. These results suggest that calpain plays an important role in E. histolytica-induced degradation of NF-${\kappa}B$ and STATs in colonic epithelial cells, which ultimately accelerates cell death.

• Molecules and Cells
• /
• v.41 no.8
• /
• pp.762-770
• /
• 2018

Adiponectin, a hormone produced by adipose tissue, is very abundant in plasma, and its anti- and pro-inflammatory effects are reported. However, the mechanisms of these pro- and anti-inflammatory effects are not fully defined. Herein, we evaluated the dual inflammatory response mechanism of adiponectin in macrophages. Short-term globular adiponectin (gAd) treatment induced $I{\kappa}B{\alpha}$ degradation, $NF-{\kappa}B$ nuclear translocation, and $TNF-{\alpha}$ production in RAW 264.7 cells. Polymyxin B pretreatment did not block gAd-induced $I{\kappa}B{\alpha}$ degradation, and heated gAd was unable to degrade $I{\kappa}B{\alpha}$, suggesting that the effects of gAd were not due to endotoxin contamination. gAd activated IKK and Akt, and inhibition of either IKK or Akt by dominant-negative $IKK{\beta}$ ($DN-IKK{\beta}$) or DN-Akt overexpression blocked gAd-induced $I{\kappa}B{\alpha}$ degradation, suggesting that short-term incubation with gAd mediates inflammatory responses by activating the $I{\kappa}B/NF-{\kappa}B$ and PI3K/Akt pathways. Contrastingly, long-term stimulation with gAd induced, upon subsequent stimulation, tolerance to gAd, lipopolysaccharide, and CpG-oligodeoxynucleotide, which is associated with gAd-induced downregulation of IL-receptor-associated kinase-1 (IRAK-1) due to IRAK-1 transcriptional repression. Conclusively, our findings demonstrate that the pro- and anti-inflammatory responses to gAd in innate immune cells are time-dependent, and mediated by the activation of the $I{\kappa}B/NF-{\kappa}B$ pathway, and IRAK-1 downregulation, respectively.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
• /
• v.25 no.3
• /
• pp.456-463
• /
• 2021

In this paper, Ultra Wide-Band(UWB) radar sensor is employed to detect flying drones and avoid collision in dense clutter environments. UWB signal is preferred when high resolution range measurement is required for moving targets. However, the time varying motion of flying drones may increase clutter noises in return signals and deteriorates the target detection performance, which lead to the performance degradation of anti-collision radars. We adopt a dynamic clutter suppression algorithm to estimate the time-varying distances to the moving drones with enhanced accuracy. A modified Constant False Alarm Rate(CFAR) is developed using an adaptive filter algorithm to suppress clutter while the false detection performance is well maintained. For this purpose, a velocity dependent CFAR algorithm is implemented to eliminate the clutter noise against dynamic target motions. Experiments are performed against flying drones having arbitrary trajectories to verify the performance improvement.

• Food Science of Animal Resources
• /
• v.23 no.3
• /
• pp.193-199
• /
• 2003

In order to investigate the meat tenderizing effects of pear, pineapple and kiwifruit, crude protease was prepared from each fruit and treated with actomyosin in a single manner or mixed type in several combination. Actomyosin was incubated with various proteases for 24 hrs under three different pH condition, and its degrading performance was evaluated by the SDS-PAGE. Pear extract showed an active degrading activity for actomyosin at pH 5.3 and 7.0. But, little actomyosin degradation was observed at pH 8.0. Actomyosin was strongly degraded by the treatment of protease from pineapple at all different pHs(5.3, 7.0 and 8.0). Kiwifruit protease extract has shown actomyosin degradation activity 1hr after treatment at pH 5.3 and pH 7.0. Meanwhile, the mixture of pear and pineapple extracts(l:l, w/w) showed much more degradation than the results of singular manner treatment at pH 5.3 and 7.0. When the pear protease was mixed with kiwifruit protease(l:l, w/w), the performance of actomyosin degradation was similar to the results of each single protease treatment. When the mixture was made of pineapple and kiwifruit extracts, actomyosin degradation was almost the same as the result of treatment of pineapple protease only. When those three proteases were mixed together(l:l:l, w/w/w), actomyosin degrading activities was in time dependent manner at pH 5.3. In summary, pear protease can be used potentially as a meat tenderizer when it was mixed with pineapple or kiwifruit rendering proper tenderization of the meat.

• Journal of Applied Reliability
• /
• v.14 no.3
• /
• pp.203-207
• /
• 2014

Electrodeless lamp is famous for its long life. But its reliability is dependent not only on electrodes but also on materials and structures. To evaluate end product's reliability, we studied high temperature durability by $60^{\circ}C$, $75^{\circ}C$ and $90^{\circ}C$ temperature tests, and predicted failure times by an exponential model through regression analysis. However, the test showed that temperature does not affect degradation of electrodeless lamps. Their luminous outputs degrade during the early time of the test (till 250 hours) and then converge to a saturation points. Also, '410nm ~ 530nm' spectrum degrades more than other spectra.

• Toxicological Research
• /
• v.18 no.3
• /
• pp.275-283
• /
• 2002

Fungal metabolite, gliotoxin is an epipolythiodioxopiperazin (ETP) class and has various roles including immunomodulatory and apoptotic effects. This study was designed to evaluate the mechanism by which gliotoxin exerts the apoptosis on human promyelocytic leukemic HL-60 cells. Herein, we demonstrated that the gliotoxin decreased the cell viability in a time-dependent manner Gliotoxin-induced cell death was confirmed us apoptosis characterized by chromatin condensation and ladder-pattern fragmentation of genomic DNA. Gliotoxin increased the catalytic activities of caspase-3 and caspase-9. Activation of caspase-3 was further confirmed by degradation of procaspase-3 and poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) by gliotoxin in HL-60 cells. Furthermore, gliotoxin induced the changes of mitochondrial transmembrane potential (MTP). Antioxidants, including GSH and NAC, markedly inhibited apoptosis with conistent suppression of enzymatic activity of caspase-3, caspase-9, and MTP loss in gliotoxin-treated cells. Taken together, we suggest that gliotoxin function as an oxidant and ploys proapoptotic roles in HL-60 cells via activation of intrinsic caspase cascades as well as mitochondrial dysfunction.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.38 no.6
• /
• pp.483-488
• /
• 2006

Highly radioactive waste is placed in metal canisters embedded in dense clay termed buffer. The radioactive decay is associated with heat production, which causes degradation of the buffer and thereby time-dependent loss of its waste-isolating potential. The buffer is prepared by compacting air-dry smectite clay powder and is initially not fully water saturated. The evolution of the buffer starts with slow wetting by uptake of water from the surrounding rock followed by a long period of exposure to heat, pressure from the rock and chemical reactants. It can be described by conceptual and theoretical models describing processes related to temperature (T), hydraulic (H), mechanical (M) and chemical performance (C). For temperatures below 90 C more than 75 % of the smectite will be preserved for 100 000 years but cementation may reduce the excellent performance of the buffer to a yet not known extention.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
• /
• 2000.04a
• /
• pp.805-810
• /
• 2000

The purpose of this study is to predict long-term structural safety on the Yonggwang Unit 3 prestressed concrete containment building. The aging-related degradations of its main structural materials are investigated and the effects of the property variation of time-dependent materials on the structural behavior of containment building are also assessed through the analysis on the ultimate pressure capacity. The nonlinear finite element analyses for both the design criteria condition a the present aging condition are conducted to assess the present structural capacity of the containment building As a result, it is verified that the structural capacity of the Yonggwang Unit 3 containment building under the present aging condition is judged to be still rugged. n addition, the sensitivity of the ultimate pressrue capacity of containment building according to th degradation levels of the structural materials are assessed. Finally, it is showed that the sensitivity levels are in the order of the tendon, rebar and concrete in case of individual material degradations, and the tendon-rebar, tendon-concrete and rebar-concrete in case of coupled material degradations.