• Journal of the Korean Society of Tobacco Science
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.29-38
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• 2009

Although prion diseases, a group of fatal neurodegenerative diseases of human and animals, are presumed to be caused by several mechanisms including abnormal change of prion protein, oxidative stress is still believed to play a central role in development of the diseases. Cigarette smoking has a few beneficial effects on neuronal diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease despite of many detrimental effects. In this study, we investigated how chronic cigarette smoking could exert such beneficial effect against oxidative damage. For this study, homogenates of 87V scrapie-infected brain was inoculated on intracerebral system of IM mice through stereotaxic microinjection and biochemical properties concerning with oxidative stress were examined. The scrapie infection decreased the activity of mitochondrial Mn-containing superoxide dismutase by 50% of the control, meanwhile the effects on other antioxidant enzymes including Cu or Zn-containing superoxide dismutase were not significant. Additionally, the infection elevated superoxide level as well as monoamine oxide-B (MAO-B) in the infected brain. Interestingly, many of the detrimental effects were improved in partial or significantly by long-term cigarette smoke exposure (CSE). CSE not only completely prevented the generation of mitochondrial superoxide but also significantly (p<0.05) decreased the elevated mitochondrial MAO-B activity in the infected brain. Concomitantly, CSE prevented subsequent protein oxidation and lipid peroxidation caused by scrapie infection; however, it did not affect the activities of antioxidant enzymes. These results suggest that chronic exposure of cigarette smoke contribute to in part preventing the progress of neurodegeneration caused by scrapie infection.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.127-133
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• 2014

Gastritis is a major disease that has the potential to grow as gastric cancer. Gastric cancer is a very common cancer, and it is related to a very high mortality rate in Korea. This disease is known to have various reasons, including infection with Helicobacter pylori, dietary habits, tobacco, and alcohol. The incidence rate of gastritis has reported to differ between age, population, and gender. However, unlike other factors, there has been no analysis based on gender. So, we examined the high risk factors of gastritis in each gender in the Korean population by focusing on sex. We performed an analysis of 120 clinical characteristics and genome-wide association studies (GWAS) using 349,184 single-nucleotide polymorphisms from the results of Anseong and Ansan cohort study in the Korea Association Resource (KARE) project. As the result, we could not prove a strong relation with these factors and gastritis or gastric ulcer in the GWAS. However, we confirmed several already-known risk factors and also found some differences of clinical characteristics in each gender using logistic regression. As a result of the logistic regression, a relation with hyperlipidemia, coronary artery disease, myocardial infarction, hyperlipidemia therapy, hypotensive or antihypotensive drug, diastolic blood pressure, and gastritis was seen in males; the results of this study suggest that vascular disease has a potential association with gastritis in males.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.165-172
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• 2013

A noncommunicable disease (NCD) is a medical condition or disease that is by definition non-infectious and non-transmissible among people. Currently, NCDs are the leading causes of death and disease burden worldwide. The four main types of NCDs, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, chronic lung disease, and diabetes, result in more than 30 million deaths annually. To reduce the burden of NCDs on global health, current public health actions stress the importance of preventing, detecting, and correcting modifiable risk factors; controlling major modifiable risk factors has been shown to effectively reduce NCD mortality. The World Health Organization's World Health Report 2002 identified tobacco use, alcohol consumption, overweight, physical inactivity, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol as the most important risk factors for NCDs. Accordingly, the present report set out to review the prevalence and trends of these modifiable risk factors in the Korean population. Over the past few decades, we observed significant risk factor modifications of improved blood pressure control and decreased smoking rate. However, hypertension and cigarette smoking remained the most contributable factors of NCDs in the Korean population. Moreover, other major modifiable risk factors show no improvement or even worsened. The current status and trends in major modifiable risk factors reinforce the importance of prevention, detection, and treatment of risk factors in reducing the burden of NCDs on individuals and society.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.278-282
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• 2006

Bacillus vallismortis EXTN-1, a biocontrol agent in cucumber, tomato and potato was tested in rice pathosystem against rice fungal pathogens viz. Magnaporthe grisea, Rhizoctonia solani and Cochliobolus miyabeanus. Apart from increasing the yield in the bacterized plants (11.6-12.6% over control), the study showed that EXTN1 is effective in bringing about disease suppression against all the tested fungal pathogens. EXTN-l treatment resulted in 52.11% reduction in rice blast, 83.02% reduction in sheath blight and 11.54% decrease in brown spot symptoms. As the strain is proven as an inducer for systemic resistance based on PR gene expression in Arabidopsis and tobacco models, it is supposed that a similar mechanism works in rice, bringing about disease suppression. The strain could be used as a potent biocontrol and growth-promoting agent in rice cropping system.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.8
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• pp.3173-3181
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• 2015

Background: It has been hypothesized that IL-18 (pro-) and IL-10 (anti-) inflammatory genetic variants at -607 C/A-137G/C and -819C/T,-592C/A, respectively, may generate susceptibility and severity risk with various modes of tobacco exposure in prostate carcinoma (PCa) patients. IL-18 is a pro-inflammatory cytokine expressed on various cells including prostate gland elements, and is a key mediator of immune responses with anti-cancerous properties. IL-10 is an anti-inflammatory cytokine that is associated with tumour malignancy which causes immune escape. Materials and Methods: The present study was conducted with 540 subjects, comprising 269 prostate carcinoma patients and 271 controls. Genotyping was performed by PCR-RFLP and confirmed by real time PCR probe-based methods. Results: The findings indicated that the mutant heterozygous and homozygous genotype CC and GC+CC showed significant negative associations (p=0.01, OR=0.21; 95% CI: 0.08-0.51 and p=0.011, OR=0.43; 95% CI: 0.22-0.81, respectively) thus, less chance to be diagnosed as cancer against GG genotype of tobacco smoking patients. In addition, a heterozygous GC genotype at the same locus of IL-18 pro-inflammatory cytokine may aggravate the severity (OR=2.82; 95%CI 1.09-7.29 :p=001) so that patients are more likely to be diagnosed in advanced stage than with the GG wild homozygous genotype. Our results also illustrated that anti-inflammatory cytokine (IL-10) genetic variants, although showing no significant association with susceptibility to cancer of the prostate, may gave profound effects on severity of the disease, as -819 TC (OR=4.60; 95%CI 1.35-15.73), and -592 AC (OR=5.04; 95%CI 1.08-25.43) of IL-10 in tobacco chewers and combined users (both chewers and smokers) respectively, are associated with diagnosis in more advanced stage than with other variants. Conclusions: We conclude that promoter genetic variants of IL-18 and IL-10 with various modes of tobacco exposure may affect not only susceptibility risk but also severity in prostate cancer.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.208-214
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• 2005

Objectives: This study was performed to examine the factors affecting re-smoking in male workers. Methods: A self-administrated questionnaire survey was conducted during April 2003 to examine the smoking state of 1,154 employees of a company that launched a smoking cessation campaign in1998. Five hundred and eighty seven persons, who had stopped smoking for at least one week, were selected as the final study subjects. This study collected data on smoking cessation success or failure for 6 months, and looked at the factors having an effect on re-smoking within this period. This study employed the Health Belief Model as its theoretical basis. Results: The re-smoking rate of the 587 study subjects who had stopped smoking for at least one week was 44.8% within the 6 month period. In a simple analysis, the re-smoking rates were higher in workers with a low age, on day and night shifts, blue collar, of a low rank, where this was their second attempt at smoking cessation and for those with a shorter job duration (p<0.05). Of the cues to action variables in the Heath Belief Model, re-smoking was significantly related with the perceived susceptibility factor, economic advantages of smoking cessation among the perceived benefits factor, the degree of cessation trial's barrier of the perceived barriers factor, smoking symptom experience, recognition of the degree of harmfulness of environmental tobacco smoke and the existence of chronic disease due to smoking (p<0.05). In the multiple logistic regression analysis for re-smoking, the significant variables were age, perceived susceptibility for disease, economic advantages due to smoking cessation, the perceived barrier for smoking cessation, recognition on the degree of harmfulness of environmental tobacco smoke, the existence of chronic disease due to smoking and the number of attempts at smoking cessation (p<0.05). Conclusion: From the result of this study, for an effective smoking ban policy within the work place, health education that improves the knowledge of the adverse health effects of smoking and the harmfulness of environmental tobacco smoke will be required, as well as counter plans to reduce the barriers for smoking cessation.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.111-116
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• 2019

The biotic stress of garlic and tobacco infected by bacteria and virus was evaluated using a thermal imaging camera in a growth chamber. The remote sensing technique using the thermal camera detected that garlic leaf temperature increased when the leaves were infected by bacterial soft rot of garlic. Furthermore, the temperature of leaf was relatively high for the leaves where the colony-forming unit per mL was large. Such temperature patterns were detected for tobacco leaves infected by Cucumber Mosaic Virus using thermal images. In addition, the crop water stress index (CWSI) calculated from leaf temperature also increased for the leaves infected by the virus. The event such that CWSI increased by the infection of the virus occurred before visual disease symptom appeared. Our results suggest that the thermal imaging camera would be useful for the development of crop remote sensing technique, which can be applied to a smart farm.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.375.4-376
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• 2001

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.494-501
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• 2021

Pseudomonas cichorii secretes effectors that suppress defense mechanisms in host plants. However, the function of these effectors, including avirulence protein E1 (AvrE1), in the pathogenicity of P. cichorii, remains unexplored. In this study, to investigate the function of avrE1 in P. cichorii JBC1 (PcJBC1), we created an avrE1-deficient mutant (JBC1^ΔavrE1) using CRISPR/Cas9. The disease severity caused by JBC1^ΔavrE1 in tomato plants significantly decreased by reducing water soaking during early infection stage, as evidenced by the electrolyte leakage in infected leaves. The disease symptoms caused by JBC1^ΔavrE1 in the cabbage midrib were light-brown spots compared to the dark-colored ones caused by PcJBC1, which indicates the role of AvrE1 in cell lysis. The avrE1-deficient mutant failed to elicit cell death in non-host tobacco plants. Disease severity and cell death caused by JBC1^ΔavrE1 in host and non-host plants were restored through heterologous complementation with avrE1 from Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000 (PstDC3000). Overall, our results indicate that avrE1 contributes to cell death during early infection, which consequently increases disease development in host plants. The roles of PcJBC1 AvrE1 in host cells remain to be elucidated.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.328-332
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• 2009

Diseases caused by Pepper yellow leaf curl virus infection is considered to be emerging plant diseases in Indonesia in the last five years. One key factor for disease management is the availability of accurate detection of the virus in plants. Polyclonal antibody for Pepper yellow leaf curl Indonesia virus-Bogor (PYLCIV-Bgr) was produced for detection of the virus using I-ELISA and DIBA methods. The antibody was able to detect PYLCIV-Bgr from infected plants up to dilution 1/16,384 and cross reaction was not observed with Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV), Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV), and Chilli veinal mottle virus (ChiVMV). Positive reaction was readily detected in membrane containing Begomovirus samples from Yogyakarta (Kaliurang and Kulonprogo) and West Java (Bogor and Segunung). Infection of PYLCIV-Bgr in chillipepper, tomato, and Ageratum conyzoides was also confirmed using polyclonal antibody for PYLCIV-Bgr in DIBA. Polyclonal antibody for PYLCIV-Bgr is suggested to be included in disease management approach due to its good detection level.