• Journal of the Korean Medical Association
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• v.61 no.11
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• pp.662-669
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• 2018

The cutaneous melanoma has been regarded as rare disease entity in Korea for long time but it shows a silent growth recently. Furthermore the management of cutaneous melanoma including staging system, surgical principle, sentinel lymph node biopsy and subsequent complete node dissection and, most importantly, immunotherapy and target therapy against cutaneous melanoma recently. The incidence of cutaneous melanoma is steadily increasing in Korea but its increase is rapid recent 2 decades to 4.3 times and should be greater soon according to the steeper increase of life expectancy. New staging system proposed by American Joint Committee on Cancer (2017) includes changes in individual TNM category and stage groups, particularly from a prognostic viewpoint. Dermoscopy has been successfully introduced in the differential diagnosis of pigmented skin lesion focusing on cutaneous melanoma by non-invasive simple diagnostic tool. Sentinel lymph node biopsy was a issue of long debate whether survival benefit is real or not. Temporary conclusion about this question is reached after two large scale studies and immediate complete node dissection should be performed in a certain situations. Most important change is drug therapy focusing on immunotherapy and target therapy. Braf- and MEK-inhibitor, immune checkpoint inhibitor and PD-1 blocker has been proved to be effective as a sole or combination regimen against advanced and/or high-risk adjuvant setting of cutaneous melanoma. In conclusion, these remarkable changes will be reviewed shortly here.

• Korean Journal of Artificial Intelligence
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.4-7
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• 2016

These days, citizens have made change of food life to take Western style food and to suffer from diabetes because of excessive nutrition taking, less exercise, stress and other environmental factors. They may suffer from diabetes because of genetic defect, surgery of pancreas, disinfection and medicine and others. One of ten Koreans may have symptom of diabetes to be popular. The diabetes that is a kind of metabolic disease has high blood sugar at disorder of hyper insulinism and/or defect of insulin action. Long time high blood sugar may produce chronic disease of kidney, eyes, nerve, heart and blood vessel and others. The purpose of health care of diabetes patient was to reach target blood sugar by diet, physical exercise and medicine and to prevent and delay complication. Diabetes patient shall control blood sugar to keep healthy. The blood sugar control requires time and effort, and all of the patients are difficult to make effort and to spend time. You can control blood sugar by the application. The application allows patients to control blood sugar and to save time and efforts and to make small sized input and automation of remaining area. The service was limited to blood sugar graph, and user carries smart phone to conduct test and to have difficulty. Further study needs to solve the problems and to investigate blood sugar testing not carrying smart phone and to make application of easy control of blood sugar.

• Korean Journal of Artificial Intelligence
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.4-6
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• 2015

These days, citizens have made change of food life to take Western style food and to suffer from diabetes because of excessive nutrition taking, less exercise, stress and other environmental factors. They may suffer from diabetes because of genetic defect, surgery of pancreas, disinfection and medicine and others. One of ten Koreans may have symptom of diabetes to be popular. The diabetes that is a kind of metabolic disease has high blood sugar at disorder of hyper insulinism and/or defect of insulin action. Long time high blood sugar may produce chronic disease of kidney, eyes, nerve, heart and blood vessel and others. The purpose of health care of diabetes patient was to reach target blood sugar by diet, physical exercise and medicine and to prevent and delay complication. Diabetes patient shall control blood sugar to keep healthy. The blood sugar control requires time and effort, and all of the patients are difficult to make effort and to spend time. You can control blood sugar by the application. The application allows patients to control blood sugar and to save time and efforts and to make small sized input and automation of remaining area. The service was limited to blood sugar graph, and user carries smart phone to conduct test and to have difficulty. Further study needs to solve the problems and to investigate blood sugar testing not carrying smart phone and to make application of easy control of blood sugar.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF CROP SCIENCE
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.1-13
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• 2006

Response of grain yield and milled-rice protein content to nitrogen topdress (N) timing at panicle initiation stage (PIS) is critical for quantifying real-time N requirement for target grain yield and milled-rice protein content. Two split-split-plot experiments with three replications, one in 2004 and the other in 2005, were conducted in Experimental Farm, Seoul National University, Suwon, Korea. The experiments included three N rates at tillering stage (TS), three N timing treatments at panicle initiation stage (PIS) and two rice cultivars. The N rates at TS, N timing at PIS, and rice cultivars were randomly assigned to main plot, sub plot, and sub-sub plot, respectively. Results showed that the delayed N application at PIS reduced grain yield in 2004 and increased milled-rice protein content in both years significantly at 0.05 probability level. The calculated optimum N timing at PIS from pooled data by N rates and rice cultivars in two years was at 28 days before heading (DBH). However, real-time of N timing at PIS was dependent on plant growth and N status around PIS that in turn was dependent on applied N rates at TS. The optimum N timing at PIS was at 30 DBH for no N treatments at TS while at 27 DBH for 3.6 and 7.2 kg N/10a treatments and at 27 and 29 DBH for Hwaseongbyeo and Daeanbyeo, respectively. In general, earlier applied N at PIS resulted in lower milled-rice protein content but the highest grain yield was expected to be obtained when N topdress at PIS was applied at the time when shoot N concentration started to drop below about 23 mg/g due to dilution effect after transplanting. In conclusion, the results of our experiments imply that the currently recommended N topdress time (24DBH) at PIS in Korea should be reconsidered for the higher grain yield and the better quality of rice.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.83-95
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• 2023

These days, bacterial detection methods have some limitations in sensitivity, specificity, and multiple detection. To overcome these, novel detection and identification method is necessary to be developed. Recently, NGS panel method has been suggested to screen, detect, and even identify specific foodborne pathogens in one reaction. In this study, new NGS panel primer sets were developed to target 13 specific virulence factor genes from five types of pathogenic Escherichia coli, Listeria monocytogenes, and Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium, respectively. Evaluation of the primer sets using singleplex PCR, crosscheck PCR and multiplex PCR revealed high specificity and selectivity without interference of primers or genomic DNAs. Subsequent NGS panel analysis with six artificially contaminated food samples using those primer sets showed that all target genes were multi-detected in one reaction at 10⁸-10⁵ CFU of target strains. However, a few false-positive results were shown at 10⁶-10⁵ CFU. To validate this NGS panel analysis, three sets of qPCR analyses were independently performed with the same contaminated food samples, showing the similar specificity and selectivity for detection and identification. While this NGS panel still has some issues for detection and identification of specific foodborne pathogens, it has much more advantages, especially multiple detection and identification in one reaction, and it could be improved by further optimized NGS panel primer sets and even by application of a new real-time NGS sequencing technology. Therefore, this study suggests the efficiency and usability of NGS panel for rapid determination of origin strain in various foodborne outbreaks in one reaction.

• Journal of the East Asian Society of Dietary Life
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.391-402
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to understand the characteristics and improvements of Korean foods by using the ISA (Importance Satisfaction Analysis) targeting Korean students in international schools in the Seoul Metropolitan area. It also analyzes the difference in the importance and satisfaction of Korean foods, and to provide basic data for developing various healthy diets which are suitable for target students. Target groups are 7 to 12 graders which consist of 62 male students and 42 female students, and most of them had lived in the United States with duration of staying abroad from 1 year to less than 3 years and duration of attending schools from 1 year to less than 2 years. Most of their family structures are the nuclear family, and most of their fathers work in management positions and mothers are mostly full-time housewives. The most favored and consumed food is fruits and the least favored is seaweeds. Perceptions regarding Korean foods are mainly positive and more female students than male students consider Korean foods as well-being foods. The important factor for choosing Korean food is the flavor, and the highest satisfaction lies in the cleanliness of food and tableware, and food temperatures appear to be less important than other factors regarding both importance and satisfaction aspects. The flavor turns out to be the most influential when consuming Korean foods, and information on Korean foods is mostly acquired from advices of those around and through words-of-mouth, and many comments point out that the levels of sanitation should be improved. The result of ISA regarding determinant factors in choosing Korean foods by Korean students in international schools shows that efforts for aggressive improvements should be made in areas for 'the amount of food', 'the price of food', and 'the curiosity on food'.

• IMMUNE NETWORK
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.247-251
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• 2005

Background: Natural killer (NK) cells are CD3 (-) CD14 (-) CD56 (+) lymphocytes. They play an important role in the body's innate immune response. They can induce spontaneous killing of cancer cells or virus-infected cells via the Fas/Fas ligand or the granzyme/perforin systems. The corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) is an important regulator for the body's stress response. It promotes proliferation and migration of various cancer cells through the CRH type 1 receptor under stress, and also inhibits NK or T cell activity. However, the relationship of CRH and NK cell migration to the target has not been confirmed. Herein, we study the effect of CRH on NK cell migration. Methods: We used the human NK cell line, NK-92MI, and tested the expression of CRH receptor type 1 on NK-92MI by RT-PCR. This was to examine the effect of CRH on tumor and NK cell migration, thus NK cells (NK-92MI) were incubated with or without CRH and then each CRH treated cell's migration ability compared to that of the CRH untreated group. Results: We confirmed that CRH receptor type 1 is expressed in NK-92MI. CRH can decrease NK cell migration in a time-/dose-dependent manner. Conclusion: These data suggest CRH can inhibit NK cell migration to target cells.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.428-436
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• 2014

Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) technique relies on autocycling strand displacement DNA sysnthesis without template denaturation steps under isothermal conditions. LAMP has more advantages than modern PCR, as it requires only basic laboratory equipment like an isothermal water bath, oven, and heating cabinet. Hence, in this study, five random primers were designed with Streptococcus parauberis, shikimate kinase Arok gene sequences (Genbank accession number: CP0024711). Two primers were selected based on the ladder pattern. Other optimum reaction conditions like temperature, time, and sensitivity were established and confirmed with conventional SYBR-green PCR. Results confirmed that the designed random primers were species specific, without any non-target DNA amplification under isothermal conditions. Hence, this study suggests that LAMP techniques could be used in the diagnosis of fish pathogen, specifically S. parauberis.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.12
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• pp.7137-7141
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• 2013

Several studies have shown that nemo-like kinase (NLK) plays a vital role in apoptosis of cancer cells. The present research concerned effects and mechanisms of Taxol on NLK knockdown human laryngeal cancerHep-2 cell lines in vitro. Using RNAi, methyl-thiazoltetrazolium (MTT) assays, real-time RT-PCR, Western blotting and flow cytometry analysis, growth and the cell cycle progression of NLK knockdown Hep-2 cells and expression of downstream molecules were observed. Cell growth was obviously suppressed in the Taxol treated group (P<0.001, 48 hours). Cell numbers of combined Taxol-based chemotherapy with lentivirus mediated RNAi treatment group (Lv-shNLK+Taxol goup) were significantly different from NLK-specific siRNA lentivirus infected group (Lv-shNLK group) (p<0.001). Flow cytometry analysis revealed that Lv-shNLK+Taxol caused the G0/G1-phase DNA content to decrease from 44.1 to 3.33% (p<0.001) and the S-phase DNA content to increase from 38.4 to 82.0% (p<0.001), in comparison with the Lv-shNLK+Taxol group. Immunoblot analysis showed that knockdown of NLK led to significant reduction in the levels of cyclin D1, PCNA and PARP, whereas cyclin B1 was elevated in. Cell growth was also obviously suppressed in the Hep-2 cell line, knockdown of NLK making them more sensitive to Taxol treatment. NLK is expected to become a target of new laryngeal cancer gene therapies.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.1431-1437
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• 2012

The growth of many breast tumors is stimulated by IGF-1, which activates signal transduction pathways inducing cell proliferation. $ER{\alpha}$ is important in this process. The aim of the study was to investigate relationships in vitro among inhibitory effects of luteolin on the growth of MCF-7 cells, IGF-1 pathway and $ER{\alpha}$. Our results showed that luteolin could effectively block IGF-l-stimulated MCF-7 cell proliferation in a dose- and time-dependent manner and block cell cycle progression and induce apoptosis evidenced by the flow cytometric detection of sub-G1DNA content. Luteolin markedly decreased IGF-l-dependent IGF-IR and Akt phosphorylation without affecting Erk1/2 phosphorylation. Further experiments pointed out that $ER{\alpha}$ was directly involved in IGF-l induced cell growth inhibitory effects of luteolin, which significantly decreased $ER{\alpha}$ expression. Knockdown of $ER{\alpha}$ in MCF-7 cells by an $ER{\alpha}$-specific siRNA decreased the IGF-l induced cell growth inhibitory effects of luteolin. $ER{\alpha}$ is thus a possible target of luteolin. These findings indicate that the inhibitory effect of luteolin on the growth of MCF-7 cells is via inhibiting IGF-l mediated PI3K-Akt pathway dependent of $ER{\alpha}$ expression.