• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.239-244
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• 2013

Somatic mutation is a major cause of cancer progression and varied responses of tumors against anticancer agents. Thus, we must obtain and characterize genome-wide mutational profiles in individual cancer subtypes. The Cancer Genome Atlas database includes large amounts of sequencing and omics data generated from diverse human cancer tissues. In the present study, we integrated and analyzed the exome sequencing data from ~3,000 tissue samples and summarized the major mutant genes in each of the diverse cancer subtypes and stages. Mutations were observed in most human genes (~23,000 genes) with low frequency from an analysis of 11 major cancer subtypes. The majority of tissue samples harbored 20-80 different mutant genes, on average. Lung cancer samples showed a greater number of mutations in diverse genes than other cancer subtypes. Only a few genes were mutated with over 5% frequency in tissue samples. Interestingly, mutation frequency was generally similar between non-metastatic and metastastic samples in most cancer subtypes. Among the 12 major mutations, the TP53, USH2A, TTN, and MUC16 genes were found to be frequent in most cancer types, while BRAF, FRG1B, PBRM1, and VHL showed lineage-specific mutation patterns. The present study provides a useful resource to understand the broad spectrum of mutation frequencies in various cancer types.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.21 no.7
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• pp.734-738
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• 2011

Streptococcus pneumoniae is a major cause of invasive infection in young infants and older adults. There are currently 90 capsular serotypes identified and 23 serotypes (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6B, 7F, 8, 9N, 9V, 10A, 11A, 12F, 14, 15B, 17F, 18C, 19F, 19A, 20, 22F, 23F, and 33F) are responsible for about 90% of invasive disease. Among the more than 90 different S. pneumoniae serotypes, serotype 19A is globally very prevalent. A simplified purification procedure including adjustment of cell lysate pH to 4.5, fractionation with 50. 80% ethanol, and dialysis rendered capsular polysaccharide (CPS) in a yield of $31.32{\pm}3.11$ mg from 1 l culture (75% recovery after lyses). The product contained only 69.6 ${\mu}g$ of protein (99.78% purity) and 0.8mg (sum of the precipitants from 50~60%, 60~70%, and 70~80%) of nucleic acid (97.45% purity). The purified CPS was conjugated with bovine serum albumin; the product size ranged from 100 to 180 kDa.

• Journal of Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.57 no.3
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• pp.189-196
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• 2014

In Korea, over 4,700 animal carcass disposal sites were installed until 2011 due to the outbreak of foot and mouth disease. Due to the putrefaction of buried animals, the leachate containing veterinary antibiotics may release into surrounding environments. Antibiotic residues in the environment cause the formation of antibiotic resistance bacteria threatening human and ecosystem health. This study reports the concentrations of five antibiotics, including tetracycline (TC), chlortetracycline (CTC), oxytetracycline (OTC), sulfamethazine (SMZ), and sulfamethoxazole (SMX), in soils from animal carcass disposal site and adjacent agricultural field. Concentrations of antibiotics at animal carcass disposal sites (TC: $144.26-350.73{\mu}g/kg$, SMZ: $17.72-44.94{\mu}g/kg$) were higher than those at agricultural field (TC: $134.16-320.73{\mu}g/kg$, SMZ: $6.48-8.85{\mu}g/kg$) whereas the concentrations of CTC, OTC, and SMX were below detection limit in both sites. Results showed that the antibiotics in animal carcass site might leach to the soil and possibly contaminating the groundwater. Future studies will focus on the transfer of antibiotics residues into food crops.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.174-182
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• 2018

Background: In this study, we observed their growth and physiological responses using a variety of duty ratio under the mixed light using red, blue, and white lights. The red+blue mixed light was treated with 95%, 90%, 85%, 80%, and 75% duty ratios and red+blue+white mixed light with 85% and 70% duty ratios. We examined the width and length of leaves, total number of leaves, and number of shoots to examine their growth responses. The physiological responses were studied by measuring their photosynthetic rate, transpiration rate, stomatal conductance, water use efficiency, chlorophyll content, and fluorescence ($F_o$, $F_m$, and $F_v/F_m$). Results: We found that lower duty ratio caused the length and width of the leaves to grow longer under red+blue mixed light but that it did not cause any difference in the red+blue+white mixed light condition. In addition, there was no difference in the number of leaves and shoots among all treatments. In the red+blue mixed light condition, the photosynthetic rate was no difference, but both transpiration rate and stomatal conductance were the highest at 95% duty ratio than in other ratios. Water use efficiency pattern was similar to that of photosynthetic rate; water use efficiency was no difference. Chlorophyll content was the highest at 95% duty ratios, and it was the least at 90%, 85%, and 75% duty ratio. $F_o$ and $F_m$ values were relatively high at 85% and 80% duty ratio and low at 90% duty ratio while $F_v/F_m$ showed no difference. Conclusions: Under the red+blue+white mixed light, all physiological items showed no difference between 70 and 85% treatments. But, photosynthetic rate, water use efficiency, chlorophyll content, and $F_v/F_m$ were relatively greater in the red+blue+white mixed light than in the red+blue mixed light. Therefore, red+blue+white mixed light treated with 70% duty ratio could lessen the environmental stress and save more power when cultivating Silene capitata in a plant factory.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.97-105
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• 2023

Background: Hyperactivated airway mucosa cells overproduce mucin and cause severe breathing complications. Here, we aimed to identify the effects of saponins derived from Panax ginseng on inflammation and mucin overproduction. Methods: NCI-H292 cells were pre-incubated with 16 saponins derived from P. ginseng, and mucin overproduction was induced by treatment with phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA). Mucin protein MUC5AC was quantified by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and mRNA levels were analyzed using quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). Moreover, we performed a transcriptome analysis of PMA-treated NCI-H292 cells in the absence or presence of Rg5, and differential gene expression was confirmed using qPCR. Phosphorylation levels of signaling molecules, and the abundance of lipid droplets, were measured by western blotting, flow cytometry, and confocal microscopy. Results: Ginsenoside Rg5 effectively reduced MUC5AC secretion and decreased MUC5AC mRNA levels. A systematic functional network analysis revealed that Rg5 upregulated cholesterol and glycerolipid metabolism, resulting in the production of lipid droplets to clear reactive oxygen species (ROS), and modulated the mitogen-activated protein kinase and nuclear factor (NF)-kB signaling pathways to regulate inflammatory responses. Rg5 induced the accumulation of lipid droplets and decreased cellular ROS levels, and N-acetyl-ⳑ-cysteine, a ROS inhibitor, reduced MUC5AC secretion via Rg5. Furthermore, Rg5 hampered the phosphorylation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase and p38 proteins, affecting the NF-kB signaling pathway and pro-inflammatory responses. Conclusion: Rg5 alleviated inflammatory responses by reducing mucin secretion and promoting lipid droplet-mediated ROS clearance. Therefore, Rg5 may have potential as a therapeutic agent to alleviate respiratory disorders caused by hyperactivation of mucosa cells.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.12
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• pp.7133-7136
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• 2013

Background: We studied Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) breast cancer data of Georgia USA to analyze the impact of socio-economic factors on the disparity of breast cancer treatment outcome. Materials and Methods: This study explored socio-economic, staging and treatment factors that were available in the SEER database for breast cancer from Georgia registry diagnosed in 2004-2009. An area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) was computed for each predictor to measure its discriminatory power. The best biological predictors were selected to be analyzed with socio-economic factors. Survival analysis, Kolmogorov-Smirnov 2-sample tests and Cox proportional hazard modeling were used for univariate and multivariate analyses of time to breast cancer specific survival data. Results: There were 34,671 patients included in this study, 99.3% being females with breast cancer. This study identified race and education attainment of county of residence as predictors of poor outcome. On multivariate analysis, these socio-economic factors remained independently prognostic. Overall, race and education status of the place of residence predicted up to 10% decrease in cause specific survival at 5 years. Conclusions: Socio-economic factors are important determinants of breast cancer outcome and ensuring access to breast cancer treatment may eliminate disparities.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.244-248
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• 2012

Oxidative stress, which results in an excessive product of reactive oxygen species (ROS), is one of the fundamental mechanisms of the development of hypertension. In the vascular system, ROS have physical and pathophysiological roles in vascular remodeling and endothelial dysfunction. In this study, ROS-hypertension-related genes were collected by the biological literature-mining tools, such as SciMiner and gene2pubmed, in order to identify the genes that would cause hypertension through ROS. Further, single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) located within these gene regions were examined statistically for their association with hypertension in 6,419 Korean individuals, and pathway enrichment analysis using the associated genes was performed. The 2,945 SNPs of 237 ROS-hypertension genes were analyzed, and 68 genes were significantly associated with hypertension (p < 0.05). The most significant SNP was rs2889611 within MAPK8 (p = $2.70{\times}10^{-5}$; odds ratio, 0.82; confidence interval, 0.75 to 0.90). This study demonstrates that a text mining approach combined with association analysis may be useful to identify the candidate genes that cause hypertension through ROS or oxidative stress.

• Proceedings of the Korean Environmental Health Society Conference
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• 2002.04a
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• pp.69-73
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• 2002

There have been few reports on the survey of pathological findings of cetaceans stranded on the coast of Japan. This is partly because of lack of the procedures and/or network of systemic sampling of fresh tissues for the pathological study of stranded marine mammals. In contrast, there are a numbers of reports on the cause of illness and death in wild, free-living cetaceans examined in other countries; the commonest cause of death was parasitic and bacterial pneumonia except for entanglement in fishing gear. Anthracosis, lung and hilar lymph nodes polluted by suspended particulate matter in the air, has been recently found in some cetaceans stranded on the coast of Japan. In addition to the data from the chemical analysis of tissues, scientific data obtained from pathological study of stranded marine mammals would be also one of the useful base for the assessment of global environment. Usefulness of metallothionein in the hepatopancreas of crabs as a biomarker of marine pollution monitoring was also discussed in this study.

• Journal of Korea Association of Health Promotion
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.97-109
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• 2005

Chronic fatigue syndrome(CFS) is a complex, debilitating disorder characterized by at least 6 months of severe persistent of relapsing fatigue and a group of characteristic but nonspecific symptoms. Many researchers have proposed that CFS has a specific cause. However currently no evidence exists that proves either a specific cause of CFS. And there is no diagnostic test for CFS. The diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome is based on the patient's history, excluding other illnesses In the absence of consistent biological markers, the diagnosis of CFS arises from operational criteria that do not afford validity. The prognosis is poor and often disability and impairment of daily function and performance are prolonged. A limited understanding of the CFS has complicated the management of this disorder. Therefore, treatment of CFS may be variable and should be tailored to each patient. Therapy should include exercise, diet, good sleep hygiene, antidepressants, and other medications, depending on the patient's presentation. Regular follow-up is key to continue to exclude other medical problems and provide support for patients. Chronic fatigue syndrome is a challenging illness to manage and requires a team approach of caring providers. For the majority of patients this is a chronic illness with the goals of therapy being to improve functional status and to prevent disability. Further understanding of the etiology and pathogenesis of this illness should lead to better specific therapy.

• Proceedings of the KOSOMBE Conference
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• v.1997 no.11
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• pp.471-474
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• 1997

Recently, many studies have shown clinically the detection of proximal arterial stenosis through evaluation of a Doppler waveform alternation, the so-called pulsus tardus and parvus, that often occurs distal to the stenosis. However the cause of the tardus-parvus phenomenon remains obscure. To analyze its cause, we modeled the blood-flow circuit as simple electrical circuit. This shows that pulsus tardus-parvus effect is caused as a result of high-frequency waveform component attenuation from low-pass filtering by capacitance(complience of the poststenotic vessel wall) and resistance(stenosis). As a result, the degree of pulsus tardus-parvus increased as the complience of the poststenotic segment of vessel increased, as well as increasing stenosis.