• Title/Summary/Keyword: environmental biotechnology

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Relation between Rainfall and Phytoplankton Community in Daechung Reservoir (대청호에서 강우와 식물플랑크톤 군집의 관계)

  • Joung Seung-Hyun;Ahn Chi-Yong;Choi Aeran;Jang Kam-Yong;Oh Hee-Mock
    • Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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    • v.23 no.1
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    • pp.57-63
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    • 2005
  • The phytoplankton community, environmental factors, and rainfall were investigated from July to October in 2001 and 2003 on Dam site in Daechung Reservoir. The monthly average rainfall in the investigated period were 91.3 and 265.3 mm in 2001 and 2003, respectively. The maximum chlorophyll a concentration was observed higher at 131.5 ㎍ L/sup -1/ in 2003 than at 45.4 ㎍ L/sup -1/ in 2001. The cyanobacterial number in 2001 was counted up to over 200,000 cells mL/sup -1/, which was much higher than the maximum number of 49,000 cells mL/sup -1/ in 2003. The relative abundance of cyanobacteria in the phytoplankton community was about 97% in 2001 and 74% in 2003. Microcystis spp. were absolutely dominant species in 2001, while a couple of cyanobacteria such as Oscillatoria spp., Phormidium spp. Chroococcus spp. and Microcystis spp. were dominant species in 2003. Consequently, it seemed that rainfall affected the diversity of phytoplankton species and decreased the density of bloom-forming cyanobacteria.

A review of the immunomodulatory activities of polysaccharides isolated from Panax species

  • Hu, Yeye;He, Yang;Niu, Zhiqiang;Shen, Ting;Zhang, Ji;Wang, Xinfeng;Hu, Weicheng;Cho, Jae Youl
    • Journal of Ginseng Research
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    • v.46 no.1
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    • pp.23-32
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    • 2022
  • Panax polysaccharides are biopolymers that are isolated and purified from the roots, stems, leaves, flowers, and fruits of Panax L. plants, which have attracted considerable attention because of their immunomodulatory activities. In this paper, the composition and structural characteristics of purified polysaccharides are reviewed. Moreover, the immunomodulatory activities of polysaccharides are described both in vivo and in vitro. In vitro, Panax polysaccharides exert immunomodulatory functions mainly by activating macrophages, dendritic cells, and the complement system. In vivo, Panax polysaccharides can increase the immune organ indices and stimulate lymphocytes. In addition, this paper also discusses the membrane receptors and various signalling pathways of immune cells. Panax polysaccharides have many beneficial therapeutic effects, including enhancing or activating the immune response, and may be helpful in treating cancer, sepsis, osteoporosis, and other conditions. Panax polysaccharides have the potential for use in the development of novel therapeutic agents or adjuvants with beneficial immunomodulatory properties.

Construction of a Reporter Strain Pseudomonas putida for the Detection of Oxidative Stress Caused by Environmental Pollutants

  • Lee Yun-Ho;Ahn Eun-Young;Park Sung-Su;Madsen Eugene L.;Jeon Che-Ok;Park Woo-Jun
    • Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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    • v.16 no.3
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    • pp.386-390
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    • 2006
  • A green fluorescent protein-based Pseudomonas putida reporter was successfully constructed and shown to be capable of detecting oxidative stress. In this whole-cell reporter, the promoter of the paraquat-inducible ferredoxin-$NADP^+$ reductase (fpr) was fused to a promoterless gfp gene on a broad-host-range promoter probe vector. Pseudomonas putida KT2440 harboring this reporter plasmid exhibited an increased level of gfp expression in the presence of redox-cycling agents (paraquat and menadione), hydrogen peroxide, and potential environmental pollutant chemicals such as toluene, paint thinner, gasoline, and diesel. Induction of fpr in the presence of these chemicals was confirmed using Northern blot analysis.

The Calmodulin-Binding Transcription Factor OsCBT Suppresses Defense Responses to Pathogens in Rice

  • Koo, Sung Cheol;Choi, Man Soo;Chun, Hyun Jin;Shin, Dong Bum;Park, Bong Soo;Kim, Yul Ho;Park, Hyang-Mi;Seo, Hak Soo;Song, Jong Tae;Kang, Kyu Young;Yun, Dae-Jin;Chung, Woo Sik;Cho, Moo Je;Kim, Min Chul
    • Molecules and Cells
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    • v.27 no.5
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    • pp.563-570
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    • 2009
  • We previously isolated the OsCBT gene, which encodes a calmodulin (CaM)-binding protein, from a rice expression library constructed from fungal elicitor-treated rice suspension cells. In order to understand the function of OsCBT in rice, we isolated and characterized a T-DNA insertion mutant allele named oscbt-1. The oscbt-1 mutant exhibits reduced levels of OsCBT transcripts and no significant morphological changes compared to wild-type plant although the growth of the mutant is stunted. However, oscbt-1 mutants showed significant resistance to two major rice pathogens. The growth of the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe grisea, as well as the bacterial pathogen Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae was significantly suppressed in oscbt-1 plants. Histochemical analysis indicated that the hypersensitive-response was induced in the oscbt-1 mutant in response to compatible strains of fungal pathogens. OsCBT expression was induced upon challenge with fungal elicitor. We also observed significant increase in the level of pathogenesis-related genes in the oscbt-1 mutant even under pathogen-free condition. Taken together, the results support an idea that OsCBT might act as a negative regulator on plant defense.

Pharmacophore Modeling, Virtual Screening and Molecular Docking Studies for Identification of New Inverse Agonists of Human Histamine H1 Receptor

  • Thangapandian, Sundarapandian;Krishnamoorthy, Navaneethakrishnan;John, Shalini;Sakkiah, Sugunadevi;Lazar, Prettina;Lee, Yu-No;Lee, Keun-Woo
    • Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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    • v.31 no.1
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    • pp.52-58
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    • 2010
  • Human histamine H1 receptor (HHR1) is a G protein-coupled receptor and a primary target for antiallergic therapy. Here, the ligand-based three-dimensional pharmacophore models were built from a set of known HHR1 inverse agonists using HypoGen module of CATALYST software. All ten generated pharmacophore models consist of five essential features: hydrogen bond acceptor, ring aromatic, positive ionizable and two hydrophobic functions. Best model had a correlation coefficient of 0.854 for training set compounds and it was validated with an external test set with a high correlation value of 0.925. Using this model Maybridge database containing 60,000 compounds was screened for potential leads. A rigorous screening for drug-like compounds unveiled RH01692 and SPB00834, two novel molecules for HHR1 with good CATALYST fit and estimated activity values. The new lead molecules were docked into the active site of constructed HHR1 homology model based on recently crystallized squid rhodopsin as template. Both the hit compounds were found to have critical interactions with Glu177, Phe432 and other important amino acids. The interpretations of this study may effectively be deployed in designing of novel HHR1 inverse agonists.

Pharmacophore Mapping and Virtual Screening for SIRT1 Activators

  • Sakkiah, Sugunadevi;Krishnamoorthy, Navaneethakrishnan;Gajendrarao, Poornima;Thangapandian, Sundarapandian;Lee, Yun-O;Kim, Song-Mi;Suh, Jung-Keun;Kim, Hyong-Ha;Lee, Keun-Woo
    • Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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    • v.30 no.5
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    • pp.1152-1156
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    • 2009
  • Silent information regulator 2 (Sir2) or sirtuins are NAD(+)-dependent deacetylases, which hydrolyze the acetyllysine residues. In mammals, sirtuins are classified into seven different classes (SIRT1-7). SIRT1 was reported to be involved in age related disorders like obesity, metabolic syndrome, type II diabetes mellitus and Parkinson’s disease. Activation of SIRT1 is one of the promising approaches to treat these age related diseases. In this study, we have used HipHop module of CATALYST to identify a series of pharmacophore models to screen SIRT1 enhancing molecules. Three molecules from Sirtris Pharmaceuticals were selected as training set and 607 sirtuin activator molecules were used as test set. Five different hypotheses were developed and then validated using the training set and the test set. The results showed that the best pharmacophore model has four features, ring aromatic, positive ionization and two hydrogen-bond acceptors. The best hypothesis from our study, Hypo2, screened high number of active molecules from the test set. Thus, we suggest that this four feature pharmacophore model could be helpful to screen novel SIRT1 activator molecules. Hypo2-virtual screening against Maybridge database reveals seven molecules, which contains all the critical features. Moreover, two new scaffolds were identified from this study. These scaffolds may be a potent lead for the SIRT1 activation.

Kinetic Analysis and Mathematical Modeling of Cr(VI) Removal in a Differential Reactor Packed with Ecklonia Biomass

  • Park, Dong-Hee;Yun, Yeoung-Sang;Lim, Seong-Rin;Park, Jong-Moon
    • Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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    • v.16 no.11
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    • pp.1720-1727
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    • 2006
  • To set up a kinetic model that can provide a theoretical basis for developing a new mathematical model of the Cr(VI) biosorption column using brown seaweed Ecklonia biomass, a differential reactor system was used in this study. Based on the fact that the removal process followed a redox reaction between Cr(VI) and the biomass, with no dispersion effect in the differential reactor, a new mathematical model was proposed to describe the removal of Cr(VI) from a liquid stream passing through the differential reactor. The reduction model of Cr(VI) by the differential reactor was zero order with respect to influent Cr(IlI) concentration, and first order with respect to both the biomass and influent Cr(VI) concentrations. The developed model described well the dynamics of Cr(VI) in the effluent. In conclusion, the developed model may be used for the design and performance prediction of the biosorption column process for Cr(VI) detoxification.