• Journal of Microbiology
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• v.45 no.6
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• pp.558-565
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• 2007

Using microarray analysis, we determined those Salmonella genes induced at the entry of stationary phase, and subsequently discovered that uncharacterized yliH was induced most dramatically. We set out to establish the molecular mechanism underlying the stationary phase induction of yliH under the standard culture condition, LB with vigorous aeration, by analyzing its promoter activity in various mutant backgrounds, lacking stationary phase ${\sigma}$, $RpoS^-$, or stringent signal molecules ppGpp, ${\Delta}relA$ ${\Delta}spoT$. It was found that the stationary phase induction of yliHp was partially dependent on rpoS but entirely dependent on ppGpp. DNA sequence analysis revealed that the Salmonella yliH gene is composed of 381 base-pair nucleotides, with overall amino acid sequence revealing 76.38% amino acid identity and 88.98% similarity with Escherichia coli yliH, although no motif from data base was noted for its possible role. Recently however, it has been reported that yliH in E. coli was implicated in biofilm formation and motility by repressing these activities (Domka et al., 2006). We have constructed a mutant Salmonella deleting yliH gene by allele replacement and examined its phenotype, and found that the yliH in Salmonella more or less affects motility and adherence by enhancing these activities. The effect on biofilm formation in Salmonella was uncertain. Moreover, addition of cloned yliH of E. coli into Salmonella did not reduce motility or adherence. Taken together, it appears that the pathways implicating yliH for biofilm formation and motility in E. coli and in Salmonella are somewhat different.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.439-447
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• 2017

Myotonia congenita (MC) is a genetic disease that displays impaired relaxation of skeletal muscle and muscle hypertrophy. This disease is mainly caused by mutations of CLCN1 that encodes human skeletal muscle chloride channel (CLC-1). CLC-1 is a voltage gated chloride channel that activates upon depolarizing potentials and play a major role in stabilization of resting membrane potentials in skeletal muscle. In this study, we report 4 unrelated Korean patients diagnosed with myotonia congenita and their clinical features. Sequence analysis of all coding regions of the patients was performed and mutation, R47W and A298T, was commonly identified. The patients commonly displayed transient muscle weakness and only one patient was diagnosed with autosomal dominant type of myotonia congenita. To investigate the pathological role of the mutation, electrophysiological analysis was also performed in HEK 293 cells transiently expressing homo-or heterodimeric mutant channels. The mutant channels displayed reduced chloride current density and altered channel gating. However, the effect of A298T on channel gating was reduced with the presence of R47W in the same allele. This analysis suggests that impaired CLC-1 channel function can cause myotonia congenita and that R47W has a protective effect on A298T in relation to channel gating. Our results provide clinical features of Korean myotonia congenita patients who have the heterozygous mutation and reveal underlying pathophyological consequences of the mutants by taking electrophysiological approach.

• Journal of Microbiology
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.46-51
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• 2003

RAD6 in yeast mediates postreplication DNA repair and is responsible for DNA-damage induced mutations. RAD6 encodes ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme that is well conserved among eukaryotic organisms. However, the molecular targets and consequences of their ubiquitination by Rad6 have remained elusive. In Aspergillus nidulans, a RAD6 homolog has been isolated and shown to be an allele of uvs). We screened a CDNA library to isolate UVSJ-interacting proteins by the yeast two-hybrid system. JIPA was identified as an interactor of UVSJ. Their interaction was confirmed in vitro by a GST-pull down assay. JIPA was also able to interact with mutant UVSJ proteins, UVSJl and the active site cysteine mutant UVSJ-C88A. The N- and the C-terminal regions of UVSJ required for the interaction with UVSH, a RAD18 homolog of yeast which physically interacts with Rad6, were not necessary for the JIPA and UVSJ interactions. About 1.4 kb jipA transcript was detected in Northern analysis and its amount was not significantly increased in response to DNA-damaging agents. A genomic DNA clone of the jipA gene was isolated from a chromosome I specific genomic library by PCR-sib selection. Sequence determination of genomic and cDNA of jipA revealed an ORF of 893 bp interrupted by 2 introns, encoding a putative polypeptide of 262 amino acids. JIPA has 33% amino acid sequence identity to TIP41 of Saccharomyces cerevisiae which negatively regulates the TOR signaling pathway.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.79-86
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• 2015

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: It is well-known that alcohol consumption is associated with stroke risk as well as with aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 gene (ALDH2) polymorphisms. However, it is unclear whether ALDH2 polymorphisms are associated with stroke risk independent of alcohol consumption and whether such association is modified by sex. We evaluated sex-specific associations of a common ALDH2 polymorphism and alcohol consumption with stroke risk in a Korean population. SUBJECTS/METHODS: We conducted a prospective cohort study involving 8,465 men and women, aged 40-69 years and free of stroke between June, 2001 and January, 2003, and followed for the development of stroke. We identified new cases of stroke, which were self-reported or ascertained from vital registration data. Based on genome-wide association data, we selected a single-nucleotide polymorphism (rs2074356), which shows high linkage disequilibrium with the functional polymorphism of ALDH2. We conducted Cox proportional hazards regression analysis considering potential risk factors collected from a baseline questionnaire. RESULTS: Over the median follow-up of 8 years, 121 cases of stroke were identified. Carrying the wild-type allele of the ALDH2 polymorphism increased stroke risk among men. The multivariate hazard ratio [95% confidence interval] of stroke was 2.02 [1.03-3.99] for the wild-type allele compared with the mutant alleles, but the association was attenuated after controlling for alcohol consumption. Combinations of the wild-type allele and other risk factors of stroke, such as old age, diabetes mellitus, and habitual snoring, synergistically increased the risk among men. Among women, however, the ALDH2 polymorphism was not associated with stroke risk. CONCLUSIONS: The prospective cohort study showed a significant association between a common ALDH2 polymorphism and stroke risk in Korean men, but not in Korean women, and also demonstrated that men with genetic disadvantages gain more risk when having risk factors of stroke. Thus, these men may need to make more concerted efforts to control modifiable risk factors of stroke.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.10
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• pp.5929-5934
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• 2013

Background: Primary brain tumors constitute a small percent of all malignant cancers, but their etiology remains poorly understood. ${\beta}3$ integrin (ITGB3) has been recognized to play influential roles in angiogenesis, tumor growth and metastasis. Intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) is a surface glycoprotein important for tumor invasion and angiogenesis. The aim of this study was to investigate whether specific genetic polymorphisms of ICAM-1 and ITGB3 could be associated with brain cancer development and progression in a Turkish population. Our study is the first to our knowledge to investigate the relationship between brain tumor risk and ICAM-1 and ${\beta}3$ integrin gene polymorphisms. Materials and Methods: The study covered 92 patients with primary brain tumors and 92 age-matched healthy control subjects. Evaluation of ${\beta}3$ integrin (Leu33Pro (rs5918)) and ICAM-1 (R241G (rs1799969) and K469E (rs5498)) gene polymorphisms was performed by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP). Results: According to results of our research, the A allele of the ICAM-1 R241G gene polymorphism appeared to be a risk factor for primary brain tumors (p<0.001). Similarly, the frequency of the A mutant allele of ICAM-1 R241G was statistically significant in patients with brain tumors classified as glioma (p<0.001). When allele and genotype distributions of ICAM-1 K469E, ICAM-1 R241G and ${\beta}3$ integrin Leu33Pro gene polymorphisms were evaluated with age, sex, and smoking, there were no statistically significant differences. Haplotype analysis revealed that the frequencies of GAC (rs1799969-rs5498-rs5918) and GAT (rs1799969-rs5498-rs5918) haplotypes were significantly lower in patients as compared with controls (p=0.001; p=0.036 respectively). Conclusions: This study provides the first evidence that ICAM-1 R241G SNP significantly contributes to the risk of primary brain tumors in a Turkish population. In addition, our results suggest that ICAM-1 R241G in combination ICAM-1 K469E may have protective effects against the development of brain cancer.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.136-141
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• 2017

Accurate detection of genomic alterations, especially druggable hotspot mutations in tumors, has become an essential part of precision medicine. With targeted sequencing, we can obtain deeper coverage of reads and handle data more easily with a relatively lower cost and less time than whole-exome or whole-genome sequencing. Recently, we designed a customized gene panel for targeted sequencing of major solid cancers. In this study, we aimed to validate its performance. The cancer panel targets 95 cancer-related genes. In terms of the limit of detection, more than 86% of target mutations with a mutant allele frequency (MAF) <1% can be identified, and any mutation with >3% MAF can be detected. When we applied this system for the analysis of Acrometrix Oncology Hotspot Control DNA, which contains more than 500 COSMIC mutations across 53 genes, 99% of the expected mutations were robustly detected. We also confirmed the high reproducibility of the detection of mutations in multiple independent analyses. When we explored copy number alterations (CNAs), the expected CNAs were successfully detected, and this result was confirmed by target-specific genomic quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Taken together, these results support the reliability and accuracy of our cancer panel in detecting mutations. This panel could be useful for key mutation profiling research in solid tumors and clinical translation.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Applied Pharmacology
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• 2005.04a
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• pp.5-14
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• 2005

Recently, data from several groups have raised the concept of 'checkpoint' in transcription. As capping of nascent RNA transcript is tightly coupled to RNA polymerase II transcription, we seek to obtain direct evidence that transcripiton checkpoint via capping enzyme functions in this early regulatory step. One of temperature sensitive (ts) alleles of ceg1, a guanylyltransferase subunit of the Saccharomyces cerevisiaecapping enzyme, showed 6-azauracil (6AU) sensitivity at the permissive growth temperature, which is a phenotype that is correlated with a transcription elongational defect. This ts allele, ceg1-63 also has an impaired ability to induce PUR5 in response to a 6AU treatment. However, this cellular and molecular defect is not due to the preferential degradation of the transcript attributed from a lack of guanylyltransferase activity. On the contrary, the data suggests that the guanylyltransferase subunit of the capping enzyme plays a role in transcription elongation. First, in addition to the 6AU sensitivity, ceg1-63is synthetically lethal with elongation defective mutations of the largest subunit of RNA polymerase II. Secondly, it exhibited a lower GAL1 mRNA turn-over after glucoseshut off. Third, it decreased the transcription read through a tandem array of promoter proximal pause sites in an orientation dependent manner. Interestingly, this mutant also showed lower pass through a pause site located further downstream of the promoter. Taken together, these results suggest that the capping enzyme plays the role of an early transcription checkpoint possibly in the step of the reversion of repression by stimulating polymerase to escape from the promoter proximal arrest once RNA becomes appropriately capped.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.24 no.9
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• pp.1207-1215
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• 2014

Candida albicans, the major human fungal pathogen, undergoes morphological transition from the budding yeast form to filamentous growth in response to nitrogen starvation. In this study, we identified a new function of GST2, whose expression was required for filamentous growth of C. albicans under nitrogen-limiting conditions. The Gst2p showed Gst activity and required response to oxidative stress. The ${\Delta}gst2$ mutant displayed predominantly yeast phase growth in low ammonium media. Such morphological defect of ${\Delta}gst2$ mutants was not rescued by overexpression of Mep2p, Cph1p, or Efg1p, but was rescued by either overexpression of a hyperactive $RAS1^{G13V}$ allele or through exogenous addition of cyclic AMP. In addition, the ${\Delta}gst2$ mutants had lower levels of RAS1 transcripts than wild-type cells under conditions of nitrogen starvation. These results were consistent with the Ras1-cAMP pathway as a possible downstream target of Gst2p. These findings suggest that Gst2p is a significant component of nitrogen starvation-induced filamentation in C. albicans.

• Animal cells and systems
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.265-269
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• 2003

Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is a potent regulator of normal and abnormal angiogenesis. Recent literature suggests that VEGF has several activities that may amplify acute inflammation reactions. Dysregulated VEGF expression has been implicated as a major contributor to the development of a number of common disease pathologies. One of common mutations in the 3'- untranslated region of the VEGF gene, a C\longrightarrowT exchange at nucleotide position 936, has been found to be significantly associated with VEGF expression levels in the plasma from a previous Austrian study. The frequency of this mutation could be important genetic information regarding tumor growth and angiogenesis related diseases. The aim of this study was to investigate the frequency distribution of this mutation in general Korean population. We examined the statistical data from 207 healthy Korean subjects. Observed numbers (%) of 936T were 28.5 (CT) and 3.9 (TT), respectively. The mutant allele frequency of 936T in Korean subjects was 0.18, which appeared somewhat higher than that in Austrian subjects.

• The Korean Journal of Mycology
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 1994

Several mutants which never underwent to sexual development(NSD) of Aspergillus nidulans were analyzed genetically and physiologically. They were divided into two groups according to their characterisitics of asexual development after release from aeration block. The mutants in first group proceeded asexual development immediately after removal of aeration block, while those in second group did 10 hours or more later. The NSD mutants were separated into 4 complementation groups, nsdA, nsdB, nsdC and nsdD. The nsdA and nsdD genes were linked to AcrA1 on linkage groupⅡ and pabaA1 on linkage group I, respectively. The mutant alleles were all recessive to wild type allele in heterokayon state. The mutants did not developed cleistothecia on any of carbon sources, except NSD208 which developed cleistothecia on lactose.