• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• 제55권1호
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• pp.61-64
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• 2017

We described a human case of zoonotic dog tapeworm, Dipylidium caninum (Eucestoda: Dilepidiidae), rarely occurring in China. The mother of a 17 month-old boy noted the appearance of small white and active worms over a month period in her son's feces, but the boy was asymptomatic except mild diarrhea. We observed 3 tapeworm proglottids resembling cucumber seeds in his stool sample. Microscopically, each proglottid had 2 genital pores, 1 on each lateral edge, and numerous egg capsules in the uterus. The patient was successfully treated with a single oral dose of praziquantel. Adult worms were recovered in the diarrheic stool after praziquantel treatment and purgation. His family had household pet dogs for several years, and he might have acquired the infection by ingestion of infected fleas of his pet dogs. A history of dog or cat pets and flea bites may be important clues to diagnosis of D. caninum infection. The infected pets should also be treated.

• 생약학회지
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• 제48권1호
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• pp.63-69
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• 2017

Saururus chinensis (Lour.) Baill. (Saururaceae) has been used as a traditional medicine for the treatment of dysuria, leukorrhea, eczema, jaundice and ascites in Korea, China and Japan. Ethanol extract of S. chinensis was successively partitioned as methylene chloride, ethyl acetate, n-butanol and $H_2O$ soluble fractions. Among those fractions the ethyl acetate soluble fraction showed the most potent DPPH radical scavenging and superoxide quenching activities. To verify antioxidant activities of ethyl acetate fraction, we checked the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase, and intracellular ROS level and oxidative stress tolerance in Caenorhabditis elegans. Furthermore, to see if increased stress tolerance of worms by treating of ethyl acetate fraction was due to regulation of stress-response gene, we quantified SOD-3 expression using transgenic strain. Consequently, ethyl acetate fraction elevated SOD and catalase activities of C. elegans, and reduced intracellular ROS accumulation in a dose-dependent manner. Moreover, ethyl acetate fraction-treated CF1553 worms exhibited significantly higher SOD-3::GFP intensity.

• Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology
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• 제6권3_4호
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• pp.133-141
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• 1991

Vermistabilization is the stabilization of organic wastes using earthworms. The worms maintain aerobic conditions in the waste, accelerating and enhancing the biological decomposition of the waste. This study was carried out to find out fundamental factors affecting the performance of the process such as temperature, moisture content and pH condition of nightsoil sludge, and to evaluate the worms excreta (casting) as fertilizer. The results could be summarized as follows; the optimum range of temperature was observed 10~3$0^{\circ}C$ while survival rate of eathworm decreased rapidly at 35$^{\circ}C$ within 6 days and death occurred at 5$^{\circ}C$. Those of moisture content and pH condition were 50~70% and 5~8, respectively. Earthworms were revealed to change the composition of N in nightsoil sludge consisting of$NH_3$-N (71%), $NO_2$-N (2%) and $NO_3$-N (27%) into that $NH_3$-N (24%), $NO_2$-N (1%), $NO_3$-N (75%) in earthworm excreta, respectively The concentrations of NH$_3$and H$_2$S gas in pig manure were reduced by 59.2% and 45.2% in case of mixing pig manure with casting.

• Journal of Species Research
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• 제5권3호
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• pp.517-529
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• 2016

Two scale worms of the family Polynoidae, Arctonoe vittata (Grube, 1855) and Hyperhalosydna striata (Kingberg, 1856) were found for the first time from Korea by SCUBA diving survey. The two species are free-living organisms or associated commensally with a wide variety of other invertebrates. Specimens of A. vittata were collected from the East Sea and were closely associated with asteroids, holothuroids, gastropods and nudibranchs species. Specimens of H. striata were collected from Jeju-do Island, and of these, one specimen was collected in a tube of eunicid species. The two species can be easily distinguished from their congeners by distinct morphological characteristics as follows: (1) A. vittata has pigmented band near segment eight and two kinds of neurochaetae; (2) H. striata has reddish-brown longitudinal striped elytra. The morphological key characteristics of both species agreed well with their original descriptions and redescriptions. In this study, the descriptions, detailed illustrations and ecological photographs of two species based on Korean materials were provided.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• 제9권1호
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• pp.421-433
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• 2015

Recently, there have been fast-growing social network services based on the Internet environment and web technology development, the prevalence of smartphones, etc. Social networks also allow the users to convey the information and news so that they have a great influence on the public opinion formed by social interaction among users as well as the spread of information. On the other hand, these social networks also serve as perfect environments for rampant malware. Malware is rapidly being spread because relationships are formed on trust among the users. In this paper, an effective patch strategy is proposed to deal with malicious worms based on social networks. A graph is formed to analyze the structure of a social network, and subgroups are formed in the graph for the distributed patch strategy. The weighted directions and activities between the nodes are taken into account to select reliable key nodes from the generated subgroups, and the Incremental PageRanking algorithm reflecting dynamic social network features (addition/deletion of users and links) is used for deriving the high influential key nodes. With the patch based on the derived key nodes, the proposed method can prevent worms from spreading over social networks.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• 제37권1호
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• pp.39-46
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• 1999

As a preliminary study for the explanation of pathobiology of Neodiplostomum seoulense infection. a 54 kDa protease was purified from the crude extract of adult worms by sequential chromatographic methods. The crude extract was subjected to DEAE-Sepharose Fast Flow column, and protein was eluted using 25 mM Tris-HC1 (pH 7.4) containing 0.05. 0.1, 0.2 and 0.4 M NaC1 in stepwise elution. The 0.2 M NaCl fraction was further purified by Q-Sepharose chromatography and protein was eluted using 20 mM sodium acetate (pH 6.4) containing 0.05, 0.1. 0.2 and 0.3 M NaCl, respectively. The 0.1M NaCl fraction showed a single protein band on SDS-PAGE carried out on a 7.5-15% gradient gel. The proteolytic activities of the purified enzyme were specifically inhibited by L-trans-epoxy-succinylleucylamide (4-guanidino) butane (E-64) and iodoacetic acid. The enzyme, cysteine protease. showed the maximum proteolytic activity at pH 6.0 in 0.1 M buffer, and degraded extracellular matrix proteins such as collagen and fibronectin with different activities. It is suggested that the cysteine protease may playa role in the nutrient uptake of N. seoulense from the host intestine.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• 제53권1호
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• pp.101-104
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• 2015

A nematode species belonging to the genus Cosmocephalus was collected from the stomach of 2 common gulls, Larus canus. The common gulls were found dead on the seaside of Gangneung City, the Republic of Korea. The worms were identified and classified by light (LM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) on the basis of important taxonomic characters. The nematodes were characterized by a body length 9.1-9.3 mm (males) and 15.5-15.9 mm (females) and cordons recurrent in anterior direction and anastomosing laterally at about the level of anterior quarter of the buccal cavity. The salient bicuspid deirids were located on the posterior to the cordons. Lateral alae were well-developed, extending from the level just posterior of deirids to the level about middle of the body. LM and SEM observations identified the worms as C. obvelatus. This is the first reported case of C. obvelatus infection in common gulls in Korea.

• BMB Reports
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• 제47권2호
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• pp.80-85
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• 2014

Altered acetylcholine (Ach) homeostasis is associated with loss of viability in flies, developmental defects in mice, and cognitive deficits in human. Here, we assessed the importance of Ach in Caenorhabditis elegans development, focusing on the role of Ach during dauer formation. We found that dauer formation was disturbed in choline acetyltransferase (cha-1) and acetylcholinesterase (ace) mutants defective in Ach biosynthesis and degradation, respectively. When examined the potential role of G-proteins in dauer formation, goa-1 and egl-30 mutant worms, expressing mutated versions of mammalian $G_o$ and $G_q$ homolog, respectively, showed some abnormalities in dauer formation. Using quantitative mass spectrometry, we also found that dauer larvae had lower Ach content than did reproductively grown larvae. In addition, a proteomic analysis of acetylcholinesterase mutant worms, which have excessive levels of Ach, showed differential expression of metabolic genes. Collectively, these results indicate that alterations in Ach release may influence dauer formation in C. elegans.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• 제43권1호
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• pp.33-37
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• 2005

Eosinophil degranulation is considered to be a key effector function for the killing of helminthic worms and tissue inflammation at worm-infected lesion sites. However, relatively little data are available with regard to eosinophil response after stimulation with worm-secreted products which contain a large quantity of cysteine proteases. In this study, we attempted to determine whether the degranulation of human eosinophils could be induced by the direct stimulation of the excretory-secretory products (ESP) of Paragonimus westermani, which causes pulmonary paragonimiasis in human beings. Incubation of eosinophils for 3 hr with Paragonimus-secreted products resulted in marked degranulation, as evidenced by the release of eosinophil-derived neurotoxin (EON) in the culture supernatants. Moreover, superoxide anion was produced by eosinophils after stimulation of the ESP. The ESP-induced EDN release was found to be significantly inhibited when the ESP was pretreated with protease inhibitor cocktail or the cysteine protease inhibitor, E-64. These findings suggest that human eosinophils become degranulated in response to P. westermani-secreted proteases, which may contribute to in vivo tissue inflammation around the worms.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• 제41권2호
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• pp.117-120
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• 2003

A human Echinostoma hortense infection was diagnosed by gastroduodenoscopy. An 81-year-old Korean male, living in Yeongcheon-shi, Gyeongsangbuk-do and with epigastric discomfort of several days duration, was subjected to upper gastrointestinal endoscopy. He was in the habit of eating fresh water fish. Two live worms were found in the duodenal bulb area and were removed using an endoscopic forcep. Based on their morphological characteristics, the worms were identified as E. hortense. The patient was treated with praziquantel 10 mg/kg as a single dose. The source of the infection in this case remains unclear, but the fresh water fish consumed, including the loach, may have been the source. This is the second case of E. hortense infection diagnosed by endoscopy in Korea.