• Journal of Ginseng Research
• /
• v.44 no.5
• /
• pp.704-716
• /
• 2020

Background: Ginsenoside Rh2 (GRh2) is a characterized component in red ginseng widely used in Korea and China. GRh2 exhibits a wide range of pharmacological activities, such as anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and anticancer properties. However, its effects on Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) infection have not been clarified yet. Methods: The effect of GRh2 against T. gondii was assessed under in vitro and in vivo experiments. The BV2 cells were infected with tachyzoites of T. gondii RH strain, and the effects of GRh2 were evaluated by MTT assay, morphological observations, immunofluorescence staining, a trypan blue exclusion assay, reverse transcription PCR, and Western blot analyses. The in vivo experiment was conducted with BALB/c mice inoculated with lethal amounts of tachyzoites with or without GRh2 treatment. Results and conclusion: The GRh2 treatment significantly inhibited the proliferation of T. gondii under in vitro and in vivo studies. Furthermore, GRh2 blocked the activation of microglia and specifically decreased the release of inflammatory mediators in response to T. gondii infection through TLR4/NF-κB signaling pathway. In mice, GRh2 conferred modest protection from a lethal dose of T. gondii. After the treatment, the proliferation of tachyzoites in the peritoneal cavity of infected mice markedly decreased. Moreover, GRh2 also significantly decreased the T. gondii burden in mouse brain tissues. These findings indicate that GRh2 exhibits an antieT. gondii effect and inhibits the microglial activation through TLR4/NF-κB signaling pathway, providing the basic pharmacological basis for the development of new drugs to treat toxoplasmic encephalitis.

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
• /
• v.34 no.2
• /
• pp.75-85
• /
• 2007

Objectives: The aim of this study was to find out the attitude of Korean women towards IVF surrogacy which is not yet regulated by the law. Methods: We evaluated with a questionnaire, in how far IVF surrogacy was accepted in different groups of Korean women. Total 300 questionnaires were sent out to women who visited our infertility clinic, and to the nurses and office workers of our hospital. Among them, 246 questionnaires were returned, and 211 of them (85.7%) were complete and analyzed. The responders were 58 unmarried women and 153 married women including 60 infertile patients. Results: Only 17 (8.1%) women believed that IVF surrogacy was an acceptable treatment for infertile women without uterus (eg. MRKH or hysterectomized patients), and 125 (59.2%) women chose the adoption. There were no significant differences in response amongst different age group, marital status, or in relation to income level or educational level, or infertility status. A significantly higher level of acceptance was noted only in religious groups, especially in Christians. Most of responders (66.5%) chose unrelated and unknown women as a desirable host, and 28.4% of responders chose the sister or sister-in-law. Conclusions: Overall the different groups were critical towards IVF Surrogacy in Korea, irrespective of the infertile patient group. Despite the established clinical ability to have her own genetic child in women without uterus, this survey reveals that only minority supports the IVF surrogacy. So we need the survey with large, randomized population and then make a regulation about the IVF surrogacy in law.

• The Korean Journal of Mycology
• /
• v.11 no.4
• /
• pp.169-175
• /
• 1983

For the classification of 531 isolates of Fusarium moniliforme from infected rice plants, five criteria were employed for clarifying the mycological difference from I to IV based on host symptoms, conidial formation, septate of macroconidia, color of mycelium on the culture, and fungicide response. Four strains I, II, III, and IV were detected and Strain IV was the most prevalent one. Based on mycological characteristics, macroconidia with 6 or 7 septate were mostly produced by Strains I and II. Four septate macroconidia were mostly formed by Strain III while Strain IV mostly formed 3 septate macroconidia. Strain I was reddish purple (5RP 5/4) on both the bottom and the surface of the media. Strain II produced reddish purple(5RP 3/2) on both the bottom and the surface of the media. Strain I produced mostly macroconidia in pionnotes on the media surface while Strain II produced mostly microconidia in pionnotes on the media surface. Both of Strain III and IV produced mostly macroconidia in sporodochia on the surface of the mycelium. Strain IV was less reduction of germination and caused abnormal elongation of all parts of the plants, but did not kill the plants in nursery boxes. Strain III killed fewer plants than Strain IV. As above results, isolates of F. moniliforme were classified into four strains I, II, III, and IV, on the basis of five criteria.

• The Korean Journal of Pesticide Science
• /
• v.11 no.3
• /
• pp.164-170
• /
• 2007

The concept of innate immunity in insects which refers to the first line of host defense constitutes the humoral and cellular components which are involved in recognition and actively participate in the elimination of the intruding foreign micro- or macro-organisms. Several recent studies suggest that juvenile hormone (JH) modulates the cellular immune reactions in response to pathogen. In this study, pyriproxyfen (a JH agonist as an insect growth regulator) was tested in its any inhibitory effect on the immune reactions of the beet armyworm, Spodoptera exigua. To this end, five different hemocyte morphotypes of final instar S. exigua were identified by phase contrast microscopy. Plasmatocytes and granular cells, which constitute about 90% of the total hemocyte count, were prominently distinguished based on their basophilic/acidophilic nature using Giemsa stain. The role of pyriproxyfen on the functional ability of hemocytes was analyzed using FITC-labeled Providencia vermicola for the phagocytic potential of the hemocytes. Both granular cells and plasmatocytes exhibited phagocytosis behavior. Pyriproxyfen significantly inhibited the phagocytosis of both cell types, proposing its novel action as an immunosuppressant.

• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
• /
• v.13 no.4
• /
• pp.45-52
• /
• 2012

T cells induce immune responses and thereby eliminate infected micro-organisms when peptides from the microbial proteins are bound to HLAs in the host cell surfaces, It is known that the more stable the binding of peptide to HLA is, the stronger the T cell response gets to remove more effectively the source of infection. Accordingly, if peptides (HLA binder) which can be bound stably to a certain HLA are found, those peptieds are utilized to the development of peptide vaccine to prevent infectious diseases or even to cancer. However, HLA is highly polymorphic so that HLA has a large number of alleles with some frequencies even in one population. Therefore, it is very inefficient to find the peptides stably bound to a number of HLAs by testing random possible peptides for all the various alleles frequent in the population. In order to solve this problem, computational methods have recently been developed to predict peptides which are stably bound to a certain HLA. These methods could markedly decrease the number of candidate peptides to be examined by biological experiments. Accordingly, this paper not only introduces a method of machine learning to predict peptides binding to an HLA, but also suggests a new prediction model so called 'knowledge-based genetic algorithm' that has never been tried for HLA binding peptide prediction. Although based on genetic algorithm (GA). it showed more enhanced performance than GA by incorporating expert knowledge in the process of the algorithm. Furthermore, it could extract rules predicting the binding peptide of the HLA alleles common in Koreans.

• Journal of KIISE:Software and Applications
• /
• v.27 no.8
• /
• pp.864-876
• /
• 2000

This paper proposes a new scene boundary detection scheme for the MPEG System stream using MPEG Audio information and proves its usefulness by extensive experiments. A scene boundary has a characteristic that the audio as well as video information are changed rapidly. This paper first classifies this scene boundary into three cases ; Radical, Gradual, Micro Changes, with respect to the audio changes. The Radical change has a large-scale changing of decibel value and pitch value at a scene boundary, the Gradual change shows the long-time transition of decibel and pitch values from max to min or vice versa, and the Micro change displays a some change of pitch or frequency distribution without decibel changes. Upon this analysis, a new scene change detection algorithm detecting these three cases is proposed in which a progressive window with a time line is used to trace the changes in the audio information. Some experiments with various movies show that proposed algorithm could produce a high detection ratio for Radical change that is the most popular scene change in the movies, while producing a moderate detection ratio for Gradual and Micro changes. The proposed scene boundary detection scheme could be used to build a database for visual information like MPEG System stream.

• Food Science and Industry
• /
• v.52 no.3
• /
• pp.261-271
• /
• 2019

Gut microbiome have recently provided evidence that the gut microbiota are capable of greatly influencing all aspects of physiology and immunology. Although a number of recent studies have shown that probiotics can modulate gut microbiota structure, the mechanism underlying this effect remains to be elucidated. In a disease state, the relative abundances of beneficial gut bacteria are generally reduced, which is restored by constant probiotic supplementation. Oral administration of probiotics improved the disease state by (1) inducing differentiation and function of regulatory T cells, (2) reducing inflammatory response, (3) modulating the gut environment, and (4) increasing the proportions of short-chain fatty acid- or beneficial metabolite-producing gut microbiota including the genera Bifidobacterium, Faecalibacterium, Akkermansia, etc. In this review, current knowledge on how probiotics can influence host's health by altering gut microbiota structure and on how probiotics and beneficial gut bacteria can be applied as next-generation probiotics will be discussed.

• Animal Bioscience
• /
• v.34 no.2
• /
• pp.243-255
• /
• 2021

Objective: Deoxynivalenol (DON) and zearalenone (ZEN) are mycotoxins that frequently contaminate maize and grain cereals, imposing risks to the health of both humans and animals and leading to economic losses. The gut microbiome has been shown to help combat the effects of such toxins, with certain microorganisms reported to contribute significantly to the detoxification process. Methods: We examined the cecum contents of three different dietary groups of pigs (control, as well as diets contaminated with 8 mg DON/kg feed or 0.8 mg ZEN/kg feed). Bacterial 16S rRNA gene amplicons were acquired from the cecum contents and evaluated by next-generation sequencing. Results: A total of 2,539,288 sequences were generated with ~500 nucleotide read lengths. Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, and Proteobacteria were the dominant phyla, occupying more than 96% of all three groups. Lactobacillus, Bacteroides, Megasphaera, and Campylobacter showed potential as biomarkers for each group. Particularly, Lactobacillus and Bacteroides were more abundant in the DON and ZEN groups than in the control. Additionally, 52,414 operational taxonomic units were detected in the three groups; those of Bacteroides, Lactobacillus, Campylobacter, and Prevotella were most dominant and significantly varied between groups. Hence, contamination of feed by DON and ZEN affected the cecum microbiota, while Lactobacillus and Bacteroides were highly abundant and positively influenced the host physiology. Conclusion: Lactobacillus and Bacteroides play key roles in the process of detoxification and improving the immune response. We, therefore, believe that these results may be useful for determining whether disturbances in the intestinal microflora, such as the toxic effects of DON and ZEN, can be treated by modulating the intestinal bacterial flora.

• Molecules and Cells
• /
• v.44 no.1
• /
• pp.38-49
• /
• 2021

Airway mucus secretion is an essential innate immune response for host protection. However, overproduction and hypersecretion of mucus, mainly composed of the gel-forming MUC5AC protein, are significant risk factors for patients with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The transforming growth factor β (TGFβ) signaling pathway negatively regulates MUC5AC expression; however, the underlying molecular mechanism is not fully understood. Here, we showed that TGFβ significantly reduces the expression of MUC5AC mRNA and its protein in NCI-H292 cells, a human mucoepidermoid carcinoma cell line. This reduced MUC5AC expression was restored by a TGFβ receptor inhibitor (SB431542), but not by the inhibition of NF-κB (BAY11-7082 or Triptolide) or PI3K (LY294002) activities. TGFβ-activated Smad3 dose-dependently bound to MUC5AC promoter. Notably, TGFβ-activated Smad3 recruited HDAC2 and facilitated nuclear translocation of HDAC2, thereby inducing the deacetylation of NF-κB at K310, which is essential for a reduction in NF-κB transcriptional activity. Both TGFβ-induced nuclear translocation of Smad3/HDAC2 and deacetylation of NF-κB at K310 were suppressed by a Smad3 inhibitor (SIS3). These results suggest that the TGFβ-activated Smad3/HDAC2 complex is an essential negative regulator for MUC5AC expression and an epigenetic regulator for NF-κB acetylation. Therefore, these results collectively suggest that modulation of the TGFβ1/Smad3/HDAC2/NF-κB pathway axis can be a promising way to improve lung function as a treatment strategy for asthma and COPD.

• Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association
• /
• v.15 no.8
• /
• pp.45-62
• /
• 2021

This article examines celeactor as cultural contents focused on the multi-persona in a South Korean reality show program . The celeactor is a form of celebrity and part of a celetoid. Celebrity can be categorized by three forms: ascribed form, achieved form and attributed form. In attributed form, the celetoid suddenly becomes popular through the media. The celeactor is a subcategory of the celetoid. The celeactor is defined by a virtual character that exist in temporary or institutionalized traits of popular culture. The Korean celebrity culture presents Korean intellectual factors, spiritual aspects, tastes, moral virtue, power relationships and traditional hierarchy. In order to examine the features of the Korean celeactor in cultural contents, this article focuses on the multi-persona of celebrity in South Korean popular culture through fantasy, challenge and nostalgia. This article examines the multi-persona of celebrity represented in South Korean popular culture as a negotiated response to cultural identity deconstructed and reconstructed in performance. The research methodology is to analyze a South Korean television reality show program on MBC Hangout with Yoo that represents various sub-characters performed by Jae-suk Yoo, a South Korean comedian and host. As for theoretical underpinning, this exploration joins work on Erving Goffman's (1959) notion of self-presentation and Chris Rojek's (2001) celebrity studies.