• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.429-435
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• 2018

Background: Recent studies have shown that Korean Red Ginseng (KRG) successfully protects against dopaminergic neuronal death in the nigrostriatal pathway of a Parkinson's disease (PD) mouse model induced by 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP) administration; however, the mechanism has yet to be identified. Therefore, in this study we used two-dimensional electrophoresis to investigate the effects of KRG on the changes in protein expression in the substantia nigra (SN) of MPTP-treated mice. Methods: Male C57BL/6 mice (9 wk old) were intraperitoneally administered MPTP (20 mg/kg) four times at 2-h intervals, after which KRG (100 mg/kg) was orally administered once a day for 5 d. Two hours after the fifth KRG administration, a pole test was conducted to evaluate motor function, after which the brains were immediately collected. Survival of dopaminergic neurons was measured by immunohistochemistry, and protein expression was measured by two-dimensional electrophoresis and Western blotting. Results: KRG alleviated MPTP-induced behavioral dysfunction and neuronal toxicity in the SN. Additionally, the expression of eight proteins related to neuronal formation and energy metabolism for survival were shown to have changed significantly in response to MPTP treatment or KRG administration. KRG alleviated the downregulated protein expression following MPTP administration, indicating that it may enhance neuronal development and survival in the SN of MPTP-treated mice. Conclusion: These findings indicate that KRG may have therapeutic potential for the treatment of patients with PD.

• BMB Reports
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.307-313
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• 2005

Thiobacillus ferrooxidans is one of the most important bacterium used in bioleaching, and can utilize $Fe^{2+}$ or sulphide as energy source. Growth curves for Thiobacillus ferrooxidans have been tested, which show lag, logarithmic, stationary and aging phases as seen in other bacteria. The logarithmic phases were from 10 to 32 hours for Thiobacillus ferrooxidans cultivated with $Fe^{2+}$ and from 4 to 12 days for Thiobacillus ferrooxidans cultivated with elemental sulphur. Differences of protein patterns of Thiobacillus ferrooxidans growing on elemental sulphur and $Fe^{2+}$ separately were investigated after cultivation at $30^{\circ}C$ by the analysis of two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE), matrix-assisted laser desorption/ ionization (MALDI)-Mass spectrometry and ESI-MS/MS. From the 7 identified protein spots, 11 spots were found more abundant when growing on elemental sulphur. By contrast 6 protein spots were found decreased at elemental cultivation condition. Among the proteins identified, cytochrome C have been previously identified as necessary elements of electron-transfering pathway for Thiobacillus ferrooxidans to oxidize $Fe^{2+}$; ATP synthase alpha chain and beta are expressed increased when Thiobacillus ferrooxidans cultivated with $Fe^{2+}$ as energy source. ATP synthase Beta chain is the catalytic subunit, and ATP synthase alpha chain is a regulatory subunit. The function of ATPase produces ATP from ADP in the presence of a proton gradient across the membrane.

• BMB Reports
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.72-81
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• 2007

In order to screen the aging related proteins in human normal colon epithelia, the comparative proteomics analysis was applied to get the two-dimensional electrophoresis (2-DE) profiles with high resolution and reproducibility from normal colon epithelial tissues of young and aged people. Differential proteins between the colon epithelia of two age groups were found with PDQuest software. The thirty five differential protein-spots were identified by peptide mass fingerprint (PMF) based on matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOFMS) and database searching. Among them there are sixteen proteins which are significantly up-regulated in the colonic mucosal epithelia of young people group, which include ATP synthase beta chain, electron transfer flavoprotein alpha-subunit, catalase, glutathione peroxidase 1, annexin A2 and heat shock cognate 71 kDa protein, etc.; There are nineteen proteins which are significantly up-regulated in the colonic mucosal epithelia of aged people group, which include far upstream element-binding protein 1, nucleoside diphosphate kinase B, protein disulfide-isomerase precursor and VDAC-2, etc.. The identified differential proteins appear to be involved in metabolism, energy generation, chaperone, antioxidation, signal transduction, protein folding and apoptosis. The data will help to understand the molecular mechanisms of human colon epithelial aging.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.393-400
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• 2007

Analysis of protein interactions/functions in a microarray format has been of great potential in drug discovery, diagnostics, and cell biology, because it is amenable to large-scale and high-throughput biological assays in a rapid and economical way. In recent years, the protein microarray have broaden their utility towards the global analysis of protein interactions on a proteome scale, the functional activity analysis based on protein interactions and post-translational modifications (PTMs), and the discovery of biomarkers through profiling of protein expression between sample and reference pool. As a promising tool for proteomics, the protein microarray technology has advanced outstandingly over the past decade in terms of surface chemistry, acquisition of relevant proteins on a proteomic level, and detection methods. In this article, we briefly describe various techniques for development of protein microarray, and introduce developmental state of protein microarray and its applications.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.203-207
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• 2009

The target of rapamycin (TOR) signaling pathway conserved from yeast to human plays critical roles in regulation of eukaryotic cell growth. It has been shown that TOR pathway is involved in several cellular processes, including ribosome biogenesis, nutrient response, autophagy and aging. However, due to the functional diversity of TOR pathway, we do not know yet some key effectors of the pathway. To find unknown effectors of TOR signaling pathway, we took advantage of a green fluorescent protein (GFP)-tagged collection of budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We analyzed protein abundance changes by measuring the GFP fluorescence intensity of 4156 GFP-tagged yeast strains under inhibition of TOR pathway. Our proteomic analysis argues that 83 proteins are decreased whereas 32 proteins are increased by treatment of rapamycin, a specific inhibitor of TOR complex 1 (TORC1). We found that, among the 115 proteins that show significant changes in protein abundance under rapamycin treatment, 37 proteins also show expression changes in the mRNA levels by more than 2-fold under the same condition. We suggest that the 115 proteins indentified in this study may be directly or indirectly involved in TOR signaling and can serve as candidates for further investigation of the effectors of TOR pathway.

• Journal of Pharmacopuncture
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.5-12
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• 2009

Background : Anticancer effects of herbal medicine have been reported in various types of cancer, but the systematic approaches to explain molecular mechanism(s) are not established yet. Objective : To find the anticancer-effect and mechanism(s) of Water Extract of Coptis japonica (WECJ) colon cancer cell (SNU-81). Methods : We first selected 11 herbals, and anti-cancer effects of water-extracts from those herbals have been tested in human colon cancer cell line, SNU-81. Among the tested herbals, the WECJ significantly reduced proliferation of SNU-81. To establish a basis of understanding for anti-cancer mechanism, whole proteins have been obtained from SNU-81 harvested at 48 and 96 hrs after the treatment of WECJ, protein expression has been profiled by 2DE-based proteomic approach. Results : Various changes of the protein expression have been monitored, and most frequent dysregulation was found in the molecular chaperons including heat shock protein 90-alpha (Hsp90-alpha), 14-3-3 protein epsilon, T-complex protein 1 subunit alpha, protein disulfide-isomerase A3, and calreticulin. Interestingly, proliferation-associated protein 2G4 has been up-regulated, and it suggests the possible effect of Coptis japonica on ErbB3-regulated signal transduction pathway and growth control of human colon cancer cells. Conclusion : Based upon the present findings, the further study will focus on monitoring various cancer survival factors after artificial regulation of the proteins identified, and it would be the basis for the understanding of the Coptis japonica anti-cancer effect(s) at the molecular level.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.479-487
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• 2009

Glutathione reductase (GR) is an enzyme that recycles a key cellular antioxidant molecule glutathione (GSH) from its oxidized form (GSSG) thus maintaining cellular redox homeostasis. A recombinant plasmid to overexpress a GR of Brassica rapa subsp. pekinensis (BrGR) in E. coli BL21 (DE3) was constructed using an expression vector pKM260. Expression of the introduced gene was confirmed by semi-quantitative RT-PCR, immunoblotting and enzyme assays. Purification of the BrGR protein was performed by IMAC method and indicated that the BrGR was a dimmer. The BrGR required NADPH as a cofactor and specific activity was approximately 458 U. The BrGR-expressing E. coli cells showed increased GR activity and tolerance to $H_2O_2$, menadione, and heavy metal ($CdCl_2$, $ZnCl_2$ and $AlCl_2$)-mediated growth inhibition. The ectopic expression of BrGR provoked the co-regulation of a variety of antioxidant enzymes including catalase, superoxide dismutase, glutathione peroxidase, and glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase. Consequently, the transformed cells showed decreased hydroperoxide levels when exposed to stressful conditions. A proteomic analysis demonstrated the higher level of induction of proteins involved in glycolysis, detoxification/oxidative stress response, protein folding, transport/binding proteins, cell envelope/porins, and protein translation and modification when exposed to $H_2O_2$ stress. Taken together, these results indicate that the plant GR protein is functional in a cooperative way in the E. coli system to protect cells against oxidative stress.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.81-87
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• 2014

Chronic pressure-overload cardiac hypertrophy is associated with an increased risk of morbidity/mortality, largely due to maladaptive remodeling and dilatation that progresses to dilated cardiomyopathy. Alternative splicing is an important biological mechanism that generates proteomic complexity and diversity. The recent development of next-generation RNA sequencing has improved our understanding of the qualitative signatures associated with alternative splicing in various biological conditions. However, the role of alternative splicing in cardiac hypertrophy is yet unknown. The present study employed RNA-Seq and a bioinformatic approach to detect the RNA splicing regulatory elements involved in alternative splicing during pressure-overload cardiac hypertrophy. We found GC-rich exonic motifs that regulate intron retention in 5' UTRs and AT-rich exonic motifs that are involved in exclusion of the AT-rich elements that cause mRNA instability in 3' UTRs. We also identified motifs in the intronic regions involved in exon exclusion and inclusion, which predicted splicing factors that bind to these motifs. We found, through Western blotting, that the expression levels of three splicing factors, ESRP1, PTB and SF2/ASF, were significantly altered during cardiac hypertrophy. Collectively, the present results suggest that chronic pressure-overload hypertrophy is closely associated with distinct alternative splicing due to altered expression of splicing factors.

• Mass Spectrometry Letters
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.63-69
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• 2014

In this study, we present a new isotope-coded carbamidomethylation (iCCM)-based quantitative proteomics, as a complementary strategy for conventional isotope labeling strategies, with providing the simplicity, ease of use, and robustness. In iCCM-based quantification, two proteome samples can be separately isotope-labeled by means of covalently reaction of all cysteinyl residues in proteins with iodoacetamide (IAA) and its isotope (IAA-$^{13}C_2$, $D_2$), denoted as CM and iCCM, respectively, leading to a mass shift of all cysteinyl residues to be + 4 Da. To evaluate iCCM-based isotope labeling in proteomic quantification, 6 protein standards (i.e., bovine serum albumin, serotransferrin, lysozyme, beta-lactoglobulin, beta-galactosidase, and alpha-lactalbumin) isotopically labeled with IAA and its isotope, mixed equally, and followed by proteolytic digestion. The resulting CM-/iCCM-labeled peptide mixtures were analyzed using a nLC-ESI-FT orbitrap-MS/MS. From our experimental results, we found that the efficiency of iCCM-based quantification is more superior to that of mTRAQ, as a conventional nonisobaric labeling method, in which both of a number of identified peptides from 6 protein standards and the less quantitative variations in the relative abundance ratios of heavy-/light-labeled corresponding peptide pairs. Finally, we applied the developed iCCM-based quantitative method to lung cancer serum proteome in order to evaluate the potential in biomarker discovery study.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.800-806
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• 2008

The strain HK-12 was enriched and isolated from naturally fermented soybean for the production of fibrinolytic enzyme and the proteome of this enzyme induced during the incubation period was analyzed. The activity of fibrinolytic enzyme derived from supernatants of the HK-12 culture was performed by fibrin plate method for solid fibrinolytic activity. As the result, the fibrinolytic activity of HK-12 grown on the nutrient agar media was about 2.3 times greater than that of plasmin used as standard. The purified enzyme was prepared by a series of purification process including ammonium sulfate precipitation, DEAE-cellulose, Sephadex chromatography. The molecular weight of the enzyme was determined to approximately 23kDa with SDS-PAGE. In order to examine which strain HK-12 proteins increased or decreased during the incubation period, 2-DE analysis was performed. Protein spot #1 significantly expressed on the 2-DE gel of bacteria cultivated for 36-hrs was analysed. As the result of protein sequence analysis using MALDI-TOF MS, one protein was identified as serine protein kinase (PrkA).