• Journal of Life Science
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.456-462
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• 2015

We investigated the effects of fermented Sargassum thunbergii (FST) on platelet aggregation and serum lipid levels in rats made obese by a high fat diet. Six-week-old male SD-rats were randomly assigned to four groups as CON, HF-CON induced by high fat diet (HF), ST supplemented with HF (HFST100), and the fermented ST supplemented with HF group (HF-FST100). After 6 weeks, the results showed that the final weight and weight gain had decreased in the HF- FST100 group compared to the HF-CON group. Also, the food efficiency ratio was significantly reduced in the HF-FST100 group compared to HF-CON. The organ weights other than heart and spleen were significantly lower in the HF-FST100 group than in the HF-CON group. The levels of serum GOT and GPT significantly decreased in the HF-FST100 group over the HF-CON group. In addition, the total cholesterol, triglyceride and LDL-cholesterol levels were lower in the HF-FST100 group than in HF-CON, while the HDL-cholesterol level was higher in the HF-FST100. The ability of platelet aggregation of groups supplemented with FST was lower than the HF-CON group. These results suggest that FST may be beneficial in improving lipid profile and platelet aggregation in obesity.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.181-199
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• 2010

As rapid progress of population aging and strong interest in health, the demand for new healthcare service is increasing. Until now healthcare service has provided post treatment by face-to-face manner. But according to related researches, proactive treatment is resulted to be more effective for preventing diseases. Particularly, the existing healthcare services have limitations in preventing and managing metabolic syndrome such a lifestyle disease, because the cause of metabolic syndrome is related to life habit. As the advent of ubiquitous technology, patients with the metabolic syndrome can improve life habit such as poor eating habits and physical inactivity without the constraints of time and space through u-healthcare service. Therefore, lots of researches for u-healthcare service focus on providing the personalized healthcare service for preventing and managing metabolic syndrome. For example, Kim et al.(2010) have proposed a healthcare model for providing the customized calories and rates of nutrition factors by analyzing the user's preference in foods. Lee et al.(2010) have suggested the customized diet recommendation service considering the basic information, vital signs, family history of diseases and food preferences to prevent and manage coronary heart disease. And, Kim and Han(2004) have demonstrated that the web-based nutrition counseling has effects on food intake and lipids of patients with hyperlipidemia. However, the existing researches for u-healthcare service focus on providing the predefined one-way u-healthcare service. Thus, users have a tendency to easily lose interest in improving life habit. To solve such a problem of u-healthcare service, this research suggests a u-healthcare recommender system which is based on collaborative filtering principle and social network. This research follows the principle of collaborative filtering, but preserves local networks (consisting of small group of similar neighbors) for target users to recommend context aware healthcare services. Our research is consisted of the following five steps. In the first step, user profile is created using the usage history data for improvement in life habit. And then, a set of users known as neighbors is formed by the degree of similarity between the users, which is calculated by Pearson correlation coefficient. In the second step, the target user obtains service information from his/her neighbors. In the third step, recommendation list of top-N service is generated for the target user. Making the list, we use the multi-filtering based on user's psychological context information and body mass index (BMI) information for the detailed recommendation. In the fourth step, the personal information, which is the history of the usage service, is updated when the target user uses the recommended service. In the final step, a social network is reformed to continually provide qualified recommendation. For example, the neighbors may be excluded from the social network if the target user doesn't like the recommendation list received from them. That is, this step updates each user's neighbors locally, so maintains the updated local neighbors always to give context aware recommendation in real time. The characteristics of our research as follows. First, we develop the u-healthcare recommender system for improving life habit such as poor eating habits and physical inactivity. Second, the proposed recommender system uses autonomous collaboration, which enables users to prevent dropping and not to lose user's interest in improving life habit. Third, the reformation of the social network is automated to maintain the quality of recommendation. Finally, this research has implemented a mobile prototype system using JAVA and Microsoft Access2007 to recommend the prescribed foods and exercises for chronic disease prevention, which are provided by A university medical center. This research intends to prevent diseases such as chronic illnesses and to improve user's lifestyle through providing context aware and personalized food and exercise services with the help of similar users'experience and knowledge. We expect that the user of this system can improve their life habit with the help of handheld mobile smart phone, because it uses autonomous collaboration to arouse interest in healthcare.

• 한국균학회소식:학술대회논문집
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• 2016.05a
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• pp.19-20
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• 2016

Sesquiterpenoids are defined as $C_{15}$ compounds derived from farnesyl pyrophosphate (FPP), and their complex structures are found in the tissue of many diverse plants (Degenhardt et al. 2009). FPP's long chain length and additional double bond enables its conversion to a huge range of mono-, di-, and tri-cyclic structures. A number of cyclic sesquiterpenes with alcohol, aldehyde, and ketone derivatives have key biological and medicinal properties (Fraga 1999). Fungi, such as the wood-rotting Polyporus brumalis, are excellent sources of pharmaceutically interesting natural products such as sesquiterpenoids. In this study, we investigated the biosynthesis of P. brumalis sesquiterpenoids on modified medium. Fungal suspensions of 11 white rot species were inoculated in modified medium containing $C_6H_{12}O_6$, $C_4H_{12}N_2O_6$, $KH_2PO_4$, $MgSO_4$, and $CaCl_2$ for 20 days. Cultivation was stopped by solvent extraction via separation of the mycelium. The metabolites were identified as follows: propionic acid (1), mevalonic acid lactone (2), ${\beta}$-eudesmane (3), and ${\beta}$-eudesmol (4), respectively (Figure 1). The main peaks of ${\beta}$-eudesmane and ${\beta}$-eudesmol, which were indicative of sesquiterpene structures, were consistently detected for 5, 7, 12, and 15 days These results demonstrated the existence of terpene metabolism in the mycelium of P. brumalis. Polyporus spp. are known to generate flavor components such as methyl 2,4-dihydroxy-3,6-dimethyl benzoate; 2-hydroxy-4-methoxy-6-methyl benzoic acid; 3-hydroxy-5-methyl phenol; and 3-methoxy-2,5-dimethyl phenol in submerged cultures (Hoffmann and Esser 1978). Drimanes of sesquiterpenes were reported as metabolites from P. arcularius and shown to exhibit antimicrobial activity against Gram-positive bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus (Fleck et al. 1996). The main metabolites of P. brumalis, ${\beta}$-Eudesmol and ${\beta}$-eudesmane, were categorized as eudesmane-type sesquiterpene structures. The eudesmane skeleton could be biosynthesized from FPP-derived IPP, and approximately 1,000 structures have been identified in plants as essential oils. The biosynthesis of eudesmol from P. brumalis may thus be an important tool for the production of useful natural compounds as presumed from its identified potent bioactivity in plants. Essential oils comprising eudesmane-type sesquiterpenoids have been previously and extensively researched (Wu et al. 2006). ${\beta}$-Eudesmol is a well-known and important eudesmane alcohol with an anticholinergic effect in the vascular endothelium (Tsuneki et al. 2005). Additionally, recent studies demonstrated that ${\beta}$-eudesmol acts as a channel blocker for nicotinic acetylcholine receptors at the neuromuscular junction, and it can inhibit angiogenesis in vitro and in vivo by blocking the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway (Seo et al. 2011). Variation of nutrients was conducted to determine an optimum condition for the biosynthesis of sesquiterpenes by P. brumalis. Genes encoding terpene synthases, which are crucial to the terpene synthesis pathway, generally respond to environmental factors such as pH, temperature, and available nutrients (Hoffmeister and Keller 2007, Yu and Keller 2005). Calvo et al. described the effect of major nutrients, carbon and nitrogen, on the synthesis of secondary metabolites (Calvo et al. 2002). P. brumalis did not prefer to synthesize sesquiterpenes under all growth conditions. Results of differences in metabolites observed in P. brumalis grown in PDB and modified medium highlighted the potential effect inorganic sources such as $C_4H_{12}N_2O_6$, $KH_2PO_4$, $MgSO_4$, and $CaCl_2$ on sesquiterpene synthesis. ${\beta}$-eudesmol was apparent during cultivation except for when P. brumalis was grown on $MgSO_4$-free medium. These results demonstrated that $MgSO_4$ can specifically control the biosynthesis of ${\beta}$-eudesmol. Magnesium has been reported as a cofactor that binds to sesquiterpene synthase (Agger et al. 2008). Specifically, the $Mg^{2+}$ ions bind to two conserved metal-binding motifs. These metal ions complex to the substrate pyrophosphate, thereby promoting the ionization of the leaving groups of FPP and resulting in the generation of a highly reactive allylic cation. Effect of magnesium source on the sesquiterpene biosynthesis was also identified via analysis of the concentration of total carbohydrates. Our current study offered further insight that fungal sesquiterpene biosynthesis can be controlled by nutrients. To profile the metabolites of P. brumalis, the cultures were extracted based on the growth curve. Despite metabolites produced during mycelia growth, there was difficulty in detecting significant changes in metabolite production, especially those at low concentrations. These compounds may be of interest in understanding their synthetic mechanisms in P. brumalis. The synthesis of terpene compounds began during the growth phase at day 9. Sesquiterpene synthesis occurred after growth was complete. At day 9, drimenol, farnesol, and mevalonic lactone (or mevalonic acid lactone) were identified. Mevalonic acid lactone is the precursor of the mevalonic pathway, and particularly, it is a precursor for a number of biologically important lipids, including cholesterol hormones (Buckley et al. 2002). Farnesol is the precursor of sesquiterpenoids. Drimenol compounds, bi-cyclic-sesquiterpene alcohols, can be synthesized from trans-trans farnesol via cyclization and rearrangement (Polovinka et al. 1994). They have also been identified in the basidiomycota Lentinus lepideus as secondary metabolites. After 12 days in the growth phase, ${\beta}$-elemene caryophyllene, ${\delta}$-cadiene, and eudesmane were detected with ${\beta}$-eudesmol. The data showed the synthesis of sesquiterpene hydrocarbons with bi-cyclic structures. These compounds can be synthesized from FPP by cyclization. Cyclic terpenoids are synthesized through the formation of a carbon skeleton from linear precursors by terpene cyclase, which is followed by chemical modification by oxidation, reduction, methylation, etc. Sesquiterpene cyclase is a key branch-point enzyme that catalyzes the complex intermolecular cyclization of the linear prenyl diphosphate into cyclic hydrocarbons (Toyomasu et al. 2007). After 20 days in stationary phase, the oxygenated structures eudesmol, elemol, and caryophyllene oxide were detected. Thus, after growth, sesquiterpenes were identified. Per these results, we showed that terpene metabolism in wood-rotting fungi occurs in the stationary phase. We also showed that such metabolism can be controlled by magnesium supplementation in the growth medium. In conclusion, we identified P. brumalis as a wood-rotting fungus that can produce sesquiterpenes. To mechanistically understand eudesmane-type sesquiterpene biosynthesis in P. brumalis, further research into the genes regulating the dynamics of such biosynthesis is warranted.