• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.99 no.4
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• pp.501-507
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• 2010

Formaldehyde responsive protein(FRP) 1 belongs to the family of universal stress protein(USP) and is known to respond to stress caused by fumigation of gaseous volatile organic compounds(VOCs) such as formaldehyde and toluene. However, the molecular function of this protein is not well understood at cellular and molecular level. In this study, loss of function mutant of FRP1 generated by T-DNA insertion(frp1-4) has been isolated from Arabidopsis thaliana and the function of FRP1 was characterized. The loss-of-function mutant of FRP1 appeared slight growth defects with shorter stem and rosette leaves compared to wild type. In addition, the damage caused by exogenous VOCs was more severe in frp1-4 than in control. Therefore, Arabidopsis FRP1 seems to be the protein involved not only in the growth and development of plant but also the stress resistance against toxic volatile organic compounds.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.71-78
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• 2012

Eupatilin, one of representative medical components of mugwort, can be efficiently extracted from the 'Gangwha Sajabalssuk'. The Eupatilin content may depend on environmental factors such as soil and regional climate in addition to a genetic factor and Gangwha region has a profitable environmental condition for the mugwort growth. In this study, the climatological characteristics of Gangwha was analyzed in order to find the environmental condition of mugwort containing high Eupatilin in term of atmospheric, oceanographic and land variables. The climate of Gangwha is characterized by the relatively low daily temperature and large diurnal variation with plenty of solar radiation, long sunshine duration and less cloudiness. According to our correlation analysis, the long sunshine duration and the large diurnal temperature variation are highly correlated with the Eupatilin contents. The result implies that Gangwha has the favorable conditions for the cultivation and the habitat of the high-Eupatilin concentrated mugwort. Because of the sea surrounding Gangwha Island with low salinity and moderate wind, the salt contained in sea breeze is relatively low compared to other regions. Furthermore, Gangwha has clean atmospheric environment compared to other regions because the concentrations of toxic gases harmful to crop growth such as nitrogen dioxide ($NO_2$), sulfite gas ($SO_2$) and fine dust (PM-10) are lower in the air. The ozone ($O_3$) concentration is moderate and within the level of natural production. It is also found that moderately coarse texture or fine loamy soils known as good for water drainage and for the growth and cultivation of the 'Gangwha-mugwort' are distributed throughout the areas around mountainous districts in Gangwha, coinciding with those of mugwort habitat.

• Journal of KIISE:Software and Applications
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.137-152
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• 2004

Assesment of 30 nutritional minerals and 8 toxic elements in hair are very important not only for determining adequacy, deficiencies and unbalance, but also for assessing their relative relationships in the body. A test has been developed that serves this purpose exceedingly well. This test is known as tissue mineral analysis(TMA). TMA is very popular method in hair mineral analysis for health care professionals in over 46 countries' medical center. However, there are some problems. First, they do not have database which is suitable for korean to do analyze. Second, as the TMA results from TEI-USA is composed of english documents and graphic files prohibited to open, its usability is very low. Third, some of them has low level database which is related to TMA, so hairs are sent to TEI-USA for analyzing and medical services. it bring about an severe outflow of dollars. Finally, TMA results are based on the database of american health and mineral standards, it is possibly mislead korean mineral standards. The purposes of this research is to develope the first Intelligent Medical Expert System(IMES) of TMA, in Korea, which makes clear the problems mentioned earlier IMES can analyze the tissue mineral data with multiple stage decision tree classifier. It is also constructed with multiple fuzzy rule base and hence analyze the complex data from Korean database by fuzzy inference methods. Pilot test of this systems are increased of business efficiency and business satisfaction 86% and 92% respectively.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Research
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.873-886
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• 1996

For better understanding the interrelationship of hemorrhage and aggregation mechanism, cyclopiazonic acid(CPA) known as promoting the aggregation of platelet, aflatoxin $B_1(AFB_1)$ inhibiting platelet aggregation were used as toxic mycotoxins in these studies. In order to investigate the potential role of prostaglandin metabolism on the platelet aggregation, a variety of prostaglandin metabolites such as $PGF_{2{\alpha}}$, $PGE_2$ and $TXB_2$ were measured in homogenized rabbit platelets by TLC and LSC. And the role of $Ca^{{+}{+}}$ on the platelet aggregation was investigated by flow cytometer. Finally, the morphological effects of mycotoxins on platelet were determined by transmission electron microscope. The results and conclusions obtained from these studies are: 1) CPA induced no changes but $AFB_1$ increased $PGE_2$ and $TXB_2$. 2) CPA promoted ADP, collagen, thrombin, A.A., and PAF-induced $Ca^{{+}{+}}$ release. $AFB_1$, however, decreased $Ca^{{+}{+}}$ level except collagen-induced $Ca^{{+}{+}}$ release. When the calcium blocker, verapamil, was used, CPA decreased thrombin-induced $Ca^{{+}{+}}$ release and increased collagen, ADP, PAF and A.A.-induced $Ca^{{+}{+}}$ release. $AFB_1$ in contrast decreased the all factors induced $Ca^{{+}{+}}$ release. 3) $AFB_1$ did not induce any ultrastructural changes except large vacuole formation in a few platelets. And CPA also did not induce any changes except moderate shape change, indicator of platelet activation. In conclusion, CPA promoted platelet aggregation by the increases of $Ca^{{+}{+}}$ release but had no changes in A.A. metabolites. Antiaggregating effects of $AFB_1$ may be due to decreases of $Ca^{{+}{+}}$ release and increases of $PGE_2$ and $PGF_{2{\alpha}}$ formation. These data provide the basis for the future study of mobilization and function of $Ca^{{+}{+}}$ in platelet aggregation.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.1-17
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• 2018

Objectives: This research is part of a study to be conducted over five years starting from 2017 by the Ministry of Environment on the development of technologies to evaluate the impact of chemical accidents on the human body. Methods: For this research, a five-stage specific study method was developed. Results: In brief, the developed health risk assessment method can be summarized as follows. First, a health risk assessment system was built based on the guidelines set forth by the USA NRC/NAS. Second, based on the disease manifestation theory, the health risk assessment method was divided into 1) a carcinogenic health risk assessment method focused on all carcinogens except non-genotoxic carcinogens and 2) a non-carcinogenic health risk assessment method focused on noncarcinogens including non-genotoxic carcinogens. Third, the detailed contents of the health risk assessment method were developed in four stages(hazard identification, dose-response assessment, exposure assessment, and risk determination) through theoretical consideration of the assessment of the level of health risk related to chemical exposure. Finally, a health risk assessment methodology, classified into stages to address acute, subacute/subchronic, and chronic conditions was developed after considering the physicochemical behavior of hazardous chemicals upon implementation of countermeasures after a chemical accident. Conclusions: A method to evaluate the health risks related to toxic chemicals generated by chemical accidents was developed. This study was performed with the purpose of developing a mathematical health risk assessment method to evaluate the health effects of exposure to hazardous chemicals upon implementation of emergency countermeasures after chemical accidents.

• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.37-47
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• 2011

Objectives : Previous studies have shown that Fructus mume (FM) has anti-platelet effects. The present study was performed to determine the acute oral toxicity and quality control of a crude extract of FM in ICR mice. Methods : We investigated the in vivo single dose acute toxicity of FM 95% ethanol extract. This test was orally administered once by gavage to 20 male and 20 female mice at dose levels of 0 (control group), 1250, 2500 and 5000mg/kg body weight, respectively. Mortalities, clinical findings, autopsy findings and body weight changes were monitored daily for the 14 days following the administration. HPLC analysis was performed for the simultaneous determination of ursolic acid and p-hydroxycinnamic acid in FM. Reverse-phase chromatography using a C18 column and photodiode array detection at 211 nm was used for quantification of the two maker components. The mobile phase for gradient elution consists of water and acetonitrile. Results : We observed survival rates, general toxicity, change of body weight, and autopsy. The mice did not die after single oral administration of maximum dose of FM. Autopsy of animal revealed no abnormal gross finding. Therefore, $LD_{50}$ value of FM for ICR mice was more than 5000mg/kg on oral route. The HPLC analysis showed that ursolic acid and p-hydroxycinnamic acid amounts to 9.75- and 0.12% in the extract with the retention times of 47.99- and 15.38 minutes, respectively. Conclusions : These results suggest that no toxic dose level of FM in mice is considered to be more than 5000mg/kg. Consequently, it was concluded that FM have no effect on acute toxicity and side effect in ICR mice. For the quality control of FM extract, simultaneous determination of ursolic acid and p-hydroxycinnamic acid was established.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.181-189
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• 2016

The aim of this study was to identify the effects of dithiopyr (DTP), a herbicide, on behavior in zebrafish. The toxicity of DTP has rarely been investigated in fish. In the present study, zebrafish were exposed to different concentrations of DTP in the range of 10-20 μM for 48 h in a test container, in order to measure the value of median lethal concentrations (LC₅₀). Behavioral experiments were performed, including the novel tank test (NTT) and the open field test (OFT), to assess stress responses or locomotion. After exposure to the DTP solution at a sublethal concentration of 2.5–10 μM for 6 min, the behavior of the zebrafish was observed for 6 min. In the acute toxicity test, the LC₅₀ value of DTP showed as 14.49 μM in the zebrafish. The NTT showed that the duration of immobility and the velocity were significantly increased by exposure at a concentration of 5 μM of DTP, compared with a control group (p<0.05). However, compared with the control group, DTP significantly decreased the distance moved and the frequency at the top of the tank, and significantly increased the turn angle and duration at the bottom, in a concentration-dependent manner (p<0.05). In addition, in the OFT, exposure to DTP significantly decreased the distance moved and velocity compared with the control group (p<0.05). Exposure to DTP also significantly increased the duration of immobility, the turn angle, and the meandering movement, in a concentration-dependent manner (p<0.05). Further, exposure to DTP at a low concentration elevated whole-body cortisol levels in the zebrafish. The results of this study thus suggest that DTP induces a toxic response and negative effects on behavior and the endocrine system in zebrafish.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.775-780
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• 1998

Gamma irradiation at 5 kGy was applied to beefs for evaluation of their possible genotoxicity and acute oral toxicity. The genotoxicity of 5 kGy irradiated beef was evaluated by Salmonella typhimurium reversion assay and in vivo micronucleus assay using mouse bone marrow cells. The results were negative in the bacterial reversion assay with S. typhimurium TA98, TA100, TA1535, TA1537. Clastogenic effects were not shown in vivo mouse micronucleus assay at 5 kGy dose tested. In an acute toxicity test, 5 kGy-irradiated beef was administrated orally at a dose level of 313 to 5,000 mg/kg, and then number of deaths, clinical signs, body weights, and pathological examinations were examined daily for 14 days post-administration. The results indicate that 5 kGy irradiated beef did not show any toxic effect on mice and oral $LD_{50}$ value was over 5,000 mg/kg on ICR mice.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.87-100
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• 2021

With a striking increase in the level of contamination and subsequent degradations in the environment, detection and monitoring of contaminants in various sites has become a crucial mission in current society. In this review, we have summarized the current research areas in membrane-based colorimetric sensors for trace detection of various molecules. The researches covered in this summary utilize membranes composed of cellulose fibers as sensing platforms and metal nanoparticles or fluorophores as optical reagents. Displaying decent or excellent sensitivity, most of the developed sensors achieve a significant selectivity in the presence of interfering ions. The physical and chemical properties of cellulose membrane platforms can be customized by changing the synthesis method or type of optical reagent used, allowing a wide range of applications possible. Membrane-based sensors are also portable and have great mechanical properties, which enable on-site detection of contaminants. With such superior qualities, membrane-based sensors examined in the researches were used for versatile purposes including quantification of heavy metals in drinking water, trace detection of toxic antibiotics and heavy metals in environmental water samples. Some of the sensors exhibited additional features like antimicrobial ability and recyclability. Lastly, while most of the sensors aimed for a detection enabled by naked eyes through rapid colour change, many of them investigated further detection methods like fluorescence, UV-vis spectroscopy, and RGB colour intensity.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.29 no.7
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• pp.1165-1176
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• 2019

Botulinum neurotoxins (BoNTs), produced by Clostridium botulinum, are the most toxic substances known. However, the number of currently approved medical countermeasures for these toxins is very limited. Therefore, studies on therapeutic antitoxins are essential to prepare for toxin-related emergencies. Currently, more than 10,000 Halla horses, a crossbreed between the native Jeju and Thoroughbred horses, are being raised in Jeju Island of Korea. They can be used for equine antitoxin experiments and production of hyperimmune serum against BoNT/A1. Instead of the inactivated BoNT/A1 toxoid, Halla horse was immunized with the receptor-binding domain present in the C-terminus of heavy chain of BoNT/A1 (BoNT/A1-HCR) expressed in Escherichia coli. The anti-BoNT/A1-HCR antibody titer increased rapidly by week 4, and this level was maintained for several weeks after boosting immunization. Notably, $20{\mu}l$ of the week-24 BoNT/A1-HCR(-immunized) equine serum showed an in vitro neutralizing activity of over 8 international units (IU) of a reference equine antitoxin. Furthermore, $20{\mu}l$ of equine serum and $100{\mu}g$ of purified equine $F(ab^{\prime})_2$ showed 100% neutralization of 10,000 $LD_{50}$ in vivo. The results of this study shall contribute towards optimizing antitoxin production for BoNT/A1, which is essential for emergency preparedness and response.