• Korean Journal of Plant Resources
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.259-264
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• 2006

This experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of medium composition, physical condition and growth regulators on prothallus proliferation in 3 fern species belonging to Aspleniaceae (Asplenium incisum, Camptosorus sibiricus and Phyllitis scolopendrium). In all of the 3 species, the effective medium for prothallus proliferation was Murashige and Skoog's basal medium with 1% sucrose and pH 5.8. The optimum $NH_4^+:NO_3^-$ concentration ratio of protahllus proliferation was 20:40mM (1:2 ratio) in A. incisum and P. scolopendrium and 30:30mM (1:1 ratio) in C. sibiricus. However, agar content of medium did not affect the rate of prothallus proliferation. Among the selected 6 kinds of growth regulators (NAA, IAA, 2,4-D, BAP, kinetin and lip), cytokinins generally has a promotive effect, but auxins showed an inhibitory effect on prothallus growth.

• Development and Reproduction
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.9-16
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• 2013

Coactivator-associated arginine methyltransferase 1 (CARM1) is included in the protein arginine methyltransferase (PRMT) family, which methylates histone arginine residues through posttranslational modification. It has been proposed that CARM1 may up-regulate the expression of pluripotency-related genes through the alteration of the chromatin structure. Mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs) are pluripotent and have the ability to self-renew. The cells are mainly used to study the genetic function of novel genes, because the cells facilitate the transmission of the manipulated genes into target mice. Since the up-regulated methylation levels of histone arginine residue lead to the maintenance of pluripotency in embryos and stem cells, it may be suggested that CARM1 overexpressing mESCs elevate the expression of pluripotency-related genes in reconstituted embryos for transgenic mice and may resist the differentiation into trophectoderm (TE). We constructed a fusion protein by connecting CARM1 and 7X-arginine (R7). As a cell-penetrating peptide (CPP), can translocate CARM1 protein into mESCs. CPP-CARM1 protein was detected in the nuclei of the mESCs after a treatment of 24 hours. Accordingly, the expression of pluripotency-related genes was up-regulated in CPP-CARM1-treated mESCs. In addition, CPP-CARM1-treated mESC-derived embryoid bodies (EBs) showed an elevated expression of pluripotency-related genes and delayed spontaneous differentiation. This result suggests that the treatment of recombinant CPP-CARM1 protein elevates the expression of pluripotency-related genes of mESCs by epigenetic modification, and this protein-delivery system could be used to modify embryonic fate in reconstituted embryos with mESCs.

• Weed & Turfgrass Science
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.152-158
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• 2013

Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) is a member of family Asteraceae that grows all over the Korea. Recently, dandelion was cultivated for medicinal crops because of its positive medicinal effects. However, dandelion is considered as a troublesome weed in grass lawns of golf course and orchards. This study was conducted to investigate the effect of plant growth regulators [gibberellins ($GA_3$); kinetin; salicylic acid (SA); ethephon)] with different concentration on seed germination control of dandelion. Seed germination rates were increased in all concentration of $GA_3$ and kinetin treatment compared to control. In the 0.5 mM of ethephon application, seed germination rate was more increased than that of control while seed germination rate was reduced in 1.0 and 1.5 mM of ethephon treatments. Seed germination rate was significantly decreased with different SA dilutions compared to control. The germination rate was more reduced when SA was applied in combination with $GA_3$ than only SA treatments.

• Journal of Acupuncture Research
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.169-183
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• 2005

Objective : The purpose of this study was to investigate the anti-caner effect of cobrotoxin on the prostatic cancer cell line (PC-3).The goal of study is to ascertain whether cobrotoxin inhibits tile cell growth and cell cycle of PC-3, or the expression of relative genes and whether the regression of PC-3 cell growth is due to cell death or the expression of gene related to apoptosis. Methods : After the treatment of Pc-3 cells with cobrotoxin, we performed 형광현미경, MTT assay, Western blotting, Flow cytometry, PAGE electrophoresis and Surface plasmon resonance analysis to identify the cell viability, cell death, apoptosis, the changes of cell cycle and the related protein, Adk, MAP kinase. Results : 1. Compared with normal cell, the inhibition of cell growth reduced in proportion with the dose of cobrotoxin(0-16nM) in PC-3. 2. Cell viabilities of 0.1, 1, 4nM cobrotoxin treatment were decreased and those of 8, 16nM were decreased significantly. 3. S phase of cell cycle was decreased at the group of 1, 2, 4, 8, 16nM cobrotoxin, but M phase was increased at 0.1, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16nM cobrotoxin. 4. Cox-2 expression after cobrotoxin was peaked at 12hours and was decreased significantly after 6, 12, 24 hours. 5. The expression of Cdk4 was decreased dose-dependently at 1, 2, 4, 8nM cobrotoxin and was decreased siginificantly at 4, 8nM Cyclin D1 was decreased at 1, 2, 4, 8nM and Cycline E was not changed. Cycline B was decreased at 1, 2, 4, 8nM dose-dependently and was decreased siginificanlty at 2, 4, 8nM. 6. The expression of Akt was decreased at 1, 2, 4, 8nM dose-dependently and was decreased significantly at 2, 4, 8nM. 7. ERK was increased at 1, 2nM and decreased at 4, 8nM, p-ERK was increased at 1, 2, 4 nM, but decreased at 8nM. JNK and p-JNK were increased at 1, 4, 8 nM. p38 was increased at 2nM p-p38 was increased at lnM but decreased significantly at 2, 4, 8nM. 8. The nucli of normal cells were stained round and homogenous in DAPI staining, but those of PC-3 were stained condense and splitted. Apoptosis was increased dose-dependently at 2, 4, 8, 16nM and increased significantly at 2, 4, 8, 16nM. 9. Bax wasn`t changed at 1, 2, 4, 8nM and Bcl-2 was decreased significantly at 1, 2, 4, 8nM. Caspase 3 and 9 weren`t changed at 1, 2, 4nM but were decreased significantly at 8nM. Conclusions : These results indicate that cobrotoxin inhibits the growth of prostate Cancer cells, has anti-cancer effects by inducing apoptosis.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.163-192
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• 1983

In order to facilitate the Korean government's efforts in integrating family planning and maternal & child health at the primary health care level (or township level), the Soon Chun Hyang College of Medicine, with the financial and technical assistance of WHO, has under-taken a service research project. The project has employed a quasi-experimental study design introducing interventions tat provide crucial factors lacking in the ongoing government programs such as midwives and qualified referral physicians. The study is being conducted in three locations, one control area and two study areas. Before introducing trained Nurse/Midewives into the study areas, a baseline prevalence survey was undertaken from 15 July 1981 to 10 August 1981 in selelcted townships of Seosan County. In this sample survey of bath the study and control areas, 2,484 eligible women (97% reponse rate) were interviewed to obtain benchmark data on basic evaluation indicators related to family planning and maternal and child health. The salients results were summarized as follows.: 1. CONTACT RATES WITH HEALTH WORKERS; During the year preceding the survey, 12% of women were visited by government health workers. The primary reason for such visits by health workers was family planning (45% of the visits). About 34% of the women visited the health centers during the year. The primary reason for visiting health centers was immunizations for their children (45% of the visits). 3. FAMILY PLANNING USE RATE; The baseline data showed little difference between women in the study area and the control area on contraceptive use. Approximately 59% were currently using some methods. However, among those current users, almost half were practicing less effective methods of birth control such as rhythm or withdrawal. Among other methods, the tubectomy was the most popular (16%), while use of the IUD, oral pill and condom together reached only 14%. 3. PRENATAL CARE RATE; About 75% of the women reported no prenatal care for their last births (the youngest child of each women), Additionally, among women received prenatal care, over half had only one visit. 4. ATTENDANCE AT DELIVERY; Most of the women surveyed (over 80%) were attended by a non-medical person during their last delivery. These figures are somewhat comparable to the national figure of 84% for remote areas. 5. POSTNATAL CARE; The proportion of women reporting postnatal care was only 4.5%, and postnatal care was not received by the majority of women surveyed. 6. CHILD HEALTH CARE: In contrast to the low rate of maternity care for women themselves, most women reported obtaining immunization care for their children. About 75% of the women obtained Polio and/or DPT, 58% BCG, and 44% Measles vaccine for their children. However, in terms of illness care, while 35% of the women stated that their youngest child had been sick during the month preceding the survey, only 28% of these women took their child to the clinic for treatment. 7. COMPLICATIONS OF PREGNANCY AND DELIVERY AND ABNORMALITIES IN THE NEWBORN; Among all last deliveries, 18% of the women had pregnancy complications and 9% of the women had complications during delivery About 5% of the women reported abnormality in their most recent newborn. 8. REPRODUCTION EFFICIENCY; PERINATAL MORTALITY AND INFANT MORTALITY Based on data from the pregnancy history in this survey, reproduction efficiency was estimated. Out of the 11,154 pregnancies reported by all women surveyed, foetal loss was 21% (almost 16% were induced abortions) and infant deaths before reaching one year old were 3.1%. The reproduction efficiency was, therefore, reduced to 76%. In terms of perinatal and infant mortality rates, the former was 40.2 per 1,000 total births and the latter was 39.3 per 1,000 live births. Both rates described J shaped relationships with age of mothers and parity, and they were also correlated with birth interval and mother's education. In summary, this baseline survey data indicated a need for (1) improving contraceptive practices with more effective methods to prevent unwanted pregnancies and (2) providing better services for maternal and child care to protect wanted pregancies. In the Korean rural setting. the author believes that the latter is more important as the value of each child has increased as a result of the family planning campaign for the past two decades. This calls for more effective integration of Family Planning and MCH programmes to meet the needs of the family in each stage of the child bearing and rearing period with deploying more qualified personnel than the current government program personnel.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.28 no.11
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• pp.1262-1267
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• 2018

The patchiness of local environments within a habitat is assumed to be a primary factor affecting the spatial patterns of plants. In this study, a randomization procedure was developed to test the null hypothesis that only spatial association with patches determines the spatial patterns of plants. Oplismenus undulatifolius (Ard.) P. Beauv. var. undulatifolius is an herbaceous plant and a member of the genus Oplismenus in the family Poaceae. Oplismenus hirtellus subsp. undulatifolius occurs in temperate, subtropical, and tropical areas of the world. The spatial pattern of O. undulatifolius var. undulatifolius was analyzed using dispersion indices in different sizes of plots according to several patchiness indexes, population uniformity, or aggregation. Population densities (D) at Mt. Hanwoo varied from 0.453 to 4.375, with a mean of 2.387. The small and mid-sized plots ($2m{\times}2m$, $2m{\times}4m$, $4m{\times}4m$, $4m{\times}8m$, and $8m{\times}8m$) of O. undulatifolius var. undulatifolius were aggregated in the forest community. However, O. undulatifolius var. undulatifolius was uniformly distributed in three large plots ($8m{\times}16m$, $16m{\times}16m$, and $16m{\times}32m$). The greatest mean crowding ($M^*$) and patchiness index (PAI) showed positive values. Aggregation is mainly caused by environmental factors. Many plants on Mt. Hanwoo are being disturbed by climbers, which is preventing these plants from inhabiting their realized niches on Mt. Hanwoo.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.259-265
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• 2017

Excessive influx and the subsequent rapid cytosolic elevation of $Ca^{2+}$ in neurons is the major cause to induce hyperexcitability and irreversible cell damage although it is an essential ion for cellular signalings. Therefore, most neurons exhibit several cellular mechanisms to homeostatically regulate cytosolic $Ca^{2+}$ level in normal as well as pathological conditions. Delayed rectifier $K^+$ channels ($I_{DR}$ channels) play a role to suppress membrane excitability by inducing $K^+$ outflow in various conditions, indicating their potential role in preventing pathogenic conditions and cell damage under $Ca^{2+}$-mediated excitotoxic conditions. In the present study, we electrophysiologically evaluated the response of $I_{DR}$ channels to hyperexcitable conditions induced by high $Ca^{2+}$ pretreatment (3.6 mM, for 24 hours) in cultured hippocampal neurons. In results, high $Ca^{2+}$-treatment significantly increased the amplitude of $I_{DR}$ without changes of gating kinetics. Nimodipine but not APV blocked $Ca^{2+}$-induced $I_{DR}$ enhancement, confirming that the change of $I_{DR}$ might be targeted by $Ca^{2+}$ influx through voltage-dependent $Ca^{2+}$ channels (VDCCs) rather than NMDA receptors (NMDARs). The VDCC-mediated $I_{DR}$ enhancement was not affected by either $Ca^{2+}$-induced $Ca^{2+}$ release (CICR) or small conductance $Ca^{2+}$-activated $K^+$ channels (SK channels). Furthermore, PP2 but not H89 completely abolished $I_{DR}$ enhancement under high $Ca^{2+}$ condition, indicating that the activation of Src family tyrosine kinases (SFKs) is required for $Ca^{2+}$-mediated $I_{DR}$ enhancement. Thus, SFKs may be sensitive to excessive $Ca^{2+}$ influx through VDCCs and enhance $I_{DR}$ to activate a neuroprotective mechanism against $Ca^{2+}$-mediated hyperexcitability in neurons.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• v.49 no.6
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• pp.719-728
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• 2007

The cysteine and glycine rich protein 3 (CSRP3), apolipoprotein B mRNA editing enzyme catalytic polypeptide‐like 2(APOBEC2) and caveolin (CAV) gene family(CAV1, CAV2, CAV3) have been reported to play important roles for carcass and meat quality traits in pig, mouse, human and cattle. As an initial step, we investigated SNPs in these 5 genes among eight different cattle breeds. Eighteen primer pairs were designed from bovine sequence data of NCBI database to amplify the partial gene fragments. Sequencing results revealed 9 SNPs in the coding regions of three caveolin genes, 1 SNP in CSRP3 and 3 SNPs in APOBEC2 gene. All the identified SNPs were confirmed by PCR-RFLP. Also, 9 more intronic SNPs were detected in these genes. However, all identified mutations in the coding region do not change amino acid sequence. Allelic distributions were significantly different for 5 SNPs in CAV2, CAV3, CSRP3 and APOBEC2 genes among the eight different breeds. These results gave some clues about the polymorphisms of these genes among the cattle breeds and will be useful for further searches for identifying association between these SNPs and meat quality traits in cattle.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.334-340
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• 2004

This study was initially performed to obtain fundamental data on lichen distribution depending on environmental condiLichens distributed on coastal rocks atleast 20 m far away from the coast were also investigated. Analyof morphological characteristics and rDNA ITS clones revealed that lichens containing 9 families and 15 genera were distributed in coastal rocks of V-do, while lichens containing 10 families and 14 genera were in field rocks, demonstrating little difference of diversity between both sites. Foliose lichens such as PhaeophysPhyscia, Pyxine belonging to the family Physciaceae were representatives distributed in coastal rocks of V-do, along with Xanthoparmelia belonging to Parmeliaceae, fruticose lichens such as Ramalina to Ramaliand crustose lichen Lecanora to Lecanoraceae. In contrast, foliose lichen Cladonia belonging to the family Cladoniaceae, fruitcose lichen Stereocaulon to Streocaulaceae, and crustose lichen Porpidia to Porpidwere found only on the surface of field rocks. Crustose lichens containing genera Caloplaca, CanDirinaria, Graphis, Rhizocarpon, and Pertusaria were rarely distributed in coastal rocks, and most of them were also found in field rocks.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.398-407
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• 2017

BTG 1 (B-cell translocation gene 1) gene was first identified as a translocation gene in a case of B-cell chronic lympocytic leukemia. BTG1 is a member of the BTG/TOB family with sharing a conserved N-terminal region, which shows anti-proliferation properties and is able to stimulate cell differentiation. In this study, we identified and characterized the pacific oyster Crassostrea gigas BTG1 (cg-BTG1) gene from the gill cDNA library by an Expressed Sequence Tag (EST) analysis and its nucleotide sequence was determined. The cg-BTG1 gene encodes a predicted protein of 182 amino acids with 57% 56% identities to its zebrafish and human counterparts, and is an intron-less gene, which was confirmed by PCR analysis of genomic DNA. Maximal homologies were shown in conserved Box A and B. The deduced amino acid sequence shares high identity with other BTG1 genes of human, rat, mouse and zebrafish. The phylogenic analysis and sequence comparison of cg-BTG1 with other BTG1 were found to be closely related to the BTG1 gene structure. In addition, the predicted promoter region and the different transcription-factor binding site like an activator protein-1 (AP-1) response element involved in negative regulation and serum response element (SRE) were able to be identified by the genomic DNA walking experiment. The quantitative real-time PCR analysis showed that the mRNA of cg-BTG1 gene was expressed in gill, heart, digestive gland, intestine, stomach and mantle. The cg-BTG1 gene was expressed mainly in heart and mantle.