• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.227-231
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to examine the MAPK signaling pathways involved in regulation of HO-1 and the odontoblast differentiation markers during the odontoblastic differentiation for HDPCs. We evaluated cell growth by MTT assay and differentiation marker mRNA expression by RT-PCR. When the cells were treated with p38 inhibitor (SB203580, $10{\mu}M$), JNK inhibitor (SP600125, $10{\mu}M$), and ERK inhibitor (PD98059, $20{\mu}M$) for 7 days, cell growth and expression of HO-1 and differentiation makers were significantly decreased in HDPCs. Our results suggest that odontoblastic differentiation is positively regulated by HO-1 induction in HDPCs via ERK, JNK, and p38 signaling pathways. Thus, pharmacological HO-1 induction might represent a potent therapeutic approach for pulp capping and the regeneration of HDPCs.

• Reproductive and Developmental Biology
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.33-37
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• 2012

Differential capacity of the parthenogenetic embryonic stem cells (PESCs) is still under controversy and the mechanisms of its neural induction are yet poorly understood. Here we demonstrated neural lineage induction of PESCs by addition of insulin-like growth factor-2 (Igf2), which is an important factor for embryo organ development and a paternally expressed imprinting gene. Murine PESCs were aggregated to embryoid bodies (EBs) by suspension culture under the leukemia inhibitory factor-free condition for 4 days. To test the effect of exogenous Igf2, 30 ng/ml of Igf2 was supplemented to EBs induction medium. Then neural induction was carried out with serum-free medium containing insulin, transferrin, selenium, and fibronectin complex (ITSFn) for 12 days. Normal murine embryonic stem cells derived from fertilized embryos (ESCs) were used as the control group. Neural potential of differentiated PESCs and ESCs were analyzed by immunofluorescent labeling and real-time PCR assay (Nestin, neural progenitor marker; Tuj1, neuronal cell marker; GFAP, glial cell marker). The differentiated cells from both ESC and PESC showed heterogeneous population of Nestin, Tuj1, and GFAP positive cells. In terms of the level of gene expression, PESC showed 4 times higher level of GFAP expression than ESCs. After exposure to Igf2, the expression level of GFAP decreased both in derivatives of PESCs and ESCs. Interestingly, the expression level of $Tuj1$ increased only in ESCs, not in PESCs. The results show that IGF2 is a positive effector for suppressing over-expressed glial differentiation during neural induction of PESCs and for promoting neuronal differentiation of ESCs, while exogenous Igf2 could not accelerate the neuronal differentiation of PESCs. Although exogenous Igf2 promotes neuronal differentiation of normal ESCs, expression of endogenous $Igf2$ may be critical for initiating neuronal differentiation of pluripotent stem cells. The findings may contribute to understanding of the relationship between imprinting mechanism and neural differentiation and its application to neural tissue repair in the future.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.347-352
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• 2014

Most known osteoporosis medicines are effective for bone resorption, and so there is an increasing demand for medicines that stimulate bone formation. Watercress (N. officinale R. Br.) is widely used as a salad green and herbal remedy. This study analyzed a watercress extract using ultra-performance liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry, and identified a rutin as one of its major constituents. Osteogenic-related assays were used to compare the effects of watercress containing rutin (WCR) and rutin alone on the proliferation and differentiation of human osteoblast-like MG-63 cells. The reported data are expressed as percentages relative to the control value (medium alone; assigned as 100%). WCR increased cell proliferation to $125.0{\pm}4.0%$ ($mean{\pm}SD$), as assessed using a cell viability assay, and increased the activity of alkaline phosphatase, an early differentiation marker, to $222.3{\pm}33.8%$. In addition, WCR increased the expression of collagen type I, another early differentiation marker, to $149.2{\pm}2.8%$, and increased the degree of mineralization, a marker of the late process of differentiation, to $122.9{\pm}3.9%$. Rutin alone also increased the activity of ALP (to $154.4{\pm}12.2%$), the expression of collagen type I (to $126.6{\pm}6.2%$), and the degree of mineralization (to $112.3{\pm}5.0%$). Daidzein, which is reported to stimulate bone formation, was used as a positive control; the effects of WCR on proliferation and differentiation were significantly greater than those of daidzein. These results indicate that WCR and rutin can both induce bone formation via the differentiation of MG-63 cells. This is the first study demonstrating the effectiveness of either WCR or rutin as an osteoblast stimulant.

• Journal of Communications and Networks
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.338-350
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• 2008

The differentiated services (DiffServ) is proposed to provide packet level service differentiations in a scalable manner. To provide an end-to-end service differentiation to users having a connection over multiple domains, as well as a flow marker, an intermediate marker is necessary at the edge routers, and it should not be operated at a flow level due to a scalability problem. Due to this operation requirement, the intermediate marker has a fairness problem among the transmission control protocol (TCP) flows since TCP flows have intrinsically unfair throughputs due to the TCP's congestion control algorithm. Moreover, it is very difficult to resolve this problem without individual flow state information such as round trip time (RTT) and sending rate of each flow. In this paper, to resolve this TCP fairness problem of an intermediate marker, we propose a fair scalable marker (FSM) as an intermediate marker which works with a source flow three color marker (sf-TCM) operating as a host source marker. The proposed fair scalable marker improves the fairness among the TCP flows with different RTTs without per-flow management. Through the simulations, we show that the FSM can improve TCP fairness as well as link utilization in multiple domain DiffServ networks.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.23-30
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• 2018

Purpose: Runx2 (runt-related transcription factor 2), a bone-specific transcription factor, is a key regulator of osteoblast differentiation and its expression is induced by the activation of BMP-2 signaling. This study examined whether zinc modulates BMP-2 signaling and therefore stimulates Runx2 and osteoblast differentiation gene expression. Methods: Two osteoblastic MC3T3-E1 cell lines (subclones 4 as a high osteoblast differentiation and subclone 24 as a low osteoblastic differentiation) were cultured in an osteogenic medium (OSM) as the normal control, Zn-($1{\mu}M$ Zn) or Zn+($15{\mu}M$ Zn) for 24 h. The genes and proteins for BMP-2 signaling (BMP-2, Smad-1/p-Smad-1), transcription factors (Runx2, osterix), and osteoblast differentiation marker proteins were assessed. Results: In both cell lines, BMP-2 mRAN and protein expression and extracellular BMP-2 secretion all decreased in Zn-. The expression of Smad-1 (downstream regulator of BMP-2 signaling) and p-Smad-1 (phosphorylated Smad-1) also downregulated in Zn-. Furthermore, the expression of the bone-specific transcription factors, Runx2 and osterix, decreased in Zn-, which might be due to the decreased BMP-2 expression and Smad-1 activation (p-Smad-1) by Zn-, because Runx2 and osterix both are downstream in BMP-2 signaling. Bone marker gene expression, such as alkaline phosphatase (ALP), collagen type I (COLI), osteocalcin, and osteopontin were also downregulated in Zn-. Conclusion: The results suggest that a zinc deficiency in osteoblasts suppresses the BMP-2 signaling pathway via the suppression of Smad-1 activation, and this suppressed BMP-2 signaling can cause poor osteoblast differentiation.

• Development and Reproduction
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.173-181
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• 2009

One of the most extensively studied populations of multipotent adult stem cells are mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). MSCs derived from the human umbilical cord vein (HUC-MSCs) are morphologically and immunophenotypically similar to MSCs isolated from bone marrow. HUC-MSCs are multipotent stem cells, differ from hematopoietic stem cells and can be differentiated into neural cells. Since neural tissue has limited intrinsic capacity of repair after injury, the identification of alternate sources of neural stem cells has broad clinical potential. We isolated mesenchymal-like stem cells from the human umbilical cord vein, and studied transdifferentiation-promoting conditions in neural cells. Dopaminergic neuronal differentiation of HUC-MSCs was also studied. Neural differentiation was induced by adding bFGF, EGF, dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) in N2 medium and N2 supplement. The immunoreactive cells for $\beta$-tubulin III, a neuron-specific marker, GFAP, an astrocyte marker, or Gal-C, an oligodendrocyte marker, were found. HUC-MSCs treated with bFGF, SHH and FGF8 were differentiated into dopaminergic neurons that were immunopositive for tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) antibody. HUC-MSCs treated with DMSO and BHA rapidly showed the morphology of multipolar neurons. Both immunocytochemistry and RT-PCR analysis indicated that the expression of a number of neural markers including NeuroD1, $\beta$-tubulin III, GFAP and nestin was markedly elevated during this acute differentiation. While the stem cell markers such as SCF, C-kit, and Stat-3 were not expressed after neural differentiation, we confirmed the differentiation of dopaminergic neurons by TH/$\beta$-tubulin III positive cells. In conclusion, HUC-MSCs can be differentiated into dopaminergic neurons and these findings suggest that HUC-MSCs are alternative cell source of therapeutic treatment for neurodegenerative diseases.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Crop Science Conference
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• 2022.04a
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• pp.110-110
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• 2022

Rice is the world's most important food crop and a major source of nutrition for about two thirds of populations. Northern Vietnam is one of the most important centers of genetic diversity for cultivated rice. In this study, we determined the genetic diversity and population structure of 79 rice landraces collected from northern Vietnam and 19 rice accessions collected from different countries. In total, 98 rice accessions could be differentiated into japonica and indica with moderate genetic diversity and a polymorphism information content of 0.382. We also detected subspecies-specific markers to classify rice (Oryza sativa L.) into indica and japonica. Additionally, we detected five marker-trait associations and rare alleles that can be applied in future breeding programs. Most interestingly, analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) found genetic differentiation was related to geographical regions with an overall PhiPT (analog of fixation index FST) value of 0.130. More emphasis was given to provide signatures and infer explanations about the role of geographical isolation and environmental heterogeneity in genetic differentiation among regions in landraces from northern Vietnam. Our results suggest that rice landraces in northern Vietnam have a dynamic genetic system that can create different levels of genetic differentiation among regions, but also maintain a balanced genetic diversity between regions.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.14 no.7
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• pp.966-969
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• 2001

Some researchers reported that beef marbling was improved by the supplementation of organic zinc to a diet satisfying zinc requirement. We studied the relationship between serum zinc concentration and marbling score or serum adipogenic activity in 40 fattened steers. To determine serum adipogenic activities of the steers, preadipocytes were cultured in medium containing the serum samples during differentiation. Although serum zinc concentration was not related to beef marbling score, it was positively correlated to adipogenic activity. Then, we studied the effect of zinc on adipocyte differentiation. Zinc was added into the medium with the similar methods except the addition of fattened calf serum. The activity of glycerophosphate dehydrogenase, a marker of adipocyte differentiation, was significantly increased by the addition of zinc in culture with or without insulin. These results suggest that zinc possibly improved beef marbling through increasing adipogenic activity during fattening.

• Proceedings of the PSK Conference
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• 2003.10b
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• pp.169.2-170
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• 2003

Erythropietin (EPO), a hematopoietic factor is also required for normal brain development, and its receptor is localized in brain. Therefore, it is possible that EPO could act as a neurotropic factor inducing differentiation of neurons. The present study, we therefore investigated whether EPO can increase differentiation of undifferentiated cortical neuron isolated from postneonatal (Day 1) rat brains and PC12 cell, undifferentiated dopaminagic cell line. EPO dose (1-100 U/ml) dependently increased cell differentiation and expression of differentiation marker gene (neurofilament and tyrosine hydroxylase) in both cells. (omitted)

• International Journal of Oral Biology
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.31-36
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• 2012

Dlx3 and Dlx5 are homeobox domain proteins and are well-known regulators of osteoblastic differentiation. Since possible reciprocal relationships between osteogenic and adipogenic differentiation in mesenchymal stem cells exist, we examined the regulatory role of Dlx3 and Dlx5 on adipogenic differentiation using human dental pulp stem cells. Over-expression of Dlx3 and Dlx5 stimulated osteogenic differentiation but inhibited adipogenic differentiation of human dental pulp stem cells. Dlx3 and Dlx5 suppressed the expression of adipogenic marker genes such as $C/EBP{\alpha}$, $PPAR{\gamma}$, aP2 and lipoprotein lipase. Adipogenic stimuli suppressed the mRNA levels of Dlx3 and Dlx5, whereas osteogenic stimuli enhanced the expression of Dlx3 and Dlx5 in 3T3-L1 preadipocytes. These results suggest that Dlx3 and Dlx5 exert a stimulatory effect on osteogenic differentiation of stem cells through the inhibition of adipogenic differentiation as well as direct stimulation.