• Molecular & Cellular Toxicology
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.222-230
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• 2007

Some drugs may be limited in their clinical application due to their propensity towards their adverse effects. Toxicogenomic technology represents a useful approach for evaluating the toxic properties of new drug candidates early in the drug discovery process. Nitrofurantoin (NF) is clinical chemotherapeutic agent and antimicrobial and used to treatment of urinary tract infections. However, NF has been shown to result in pulmonary toxic effects. In this research, we revealed the changing expression gene profiles in BEAS-2B, human bronchial epithelial cell line, exposed to NF by using human oligonucleotide chip. Through the clustering analysis of gene expression profiles, we identified 136 up-regulated genes and 379 down-regulated genes changed by more than 2-fold by NF. This study identifies several interesting targets and functions in relation to NF-induced toxicity through a gene ontology analysis method including biological process, cellular components, molecular function and KEGG pathway.

• Molecular & Cellular Toxicology
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2005

Toxicology is a multidisciplinary field, and an important science that impacts both environmental health regulation and the development and practice of medicine. The rapid progress in cellular and molecular biology, like many other branches of biomedical research, toxicology is now experiencing a renaissance fueled by the application of "omic" technologies to gain a better understanding of the biological basis of toxicology of drugs and other environmental factors. In this review on current progress on toxicology, the future perspective, concept, approaches and applications of toxicogenomics as next generation promising technology in toxicology field will be described.

• Molecular & Cellular Toxicology
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.46-51
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• 2005

Mutagen X (MX) exists in our drinking water as the bi-products of chlorine disinfection. Being one of the most potent mutagen, it attracted much attention from many researchers. MX and its analogs are tested and modeled by quantitative structure activity relationship (QSAR) methods. As a result, factors affecting this class of compounds have been found to be steric and electrostatic effects. We tried to collect all the data available from the literature. The quantitative structure-activity relationship of a set of 29 MX was analyzed using Molecular Field Analysis (MFA) and Receptor Surface Analysis (RSA). The best models gave $q^{2}=0.918,\;r^{2}=0.949$ for MFA and $q^{2}=0.893,\;r^{2}=0.954$ for RSA. The models indicate that an electronegative group at C6 position of the furanone ring increases mutagenicity.

• Molecular & Cellular Toxicology
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.13-16
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• 2005

The current vision of toxicogenomics is the development of methods or platforms to predict toxicity of un characterized chemicals by using '-omics' information in pre-clinical stage. Because each chemical has different ADME (absorption, distribution, mechanism, excretion) and experimental animals have lots of variation, precise prediction of chemical's toxicity based on '-omics' information and toxicity data of known chemicals is very difficult problem. So, the importance of bioinformatics is more emphasized on toxicogenomics than other functional genomics studies because these problems can not be solved only with experiments. Thus, toxicoinformatics covers all information-based analytical methods from gene expression (bioinformatics) to chemical structures (cheminformatics) and it also deals with the integration of wide range of experimental data for further extensive analyses. In this review, the overall strategy to toxicoinformatics is discussed.

• Molecular & Cellular Toxicology
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.253-259
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• 2008

Human follicular fluid (HFF) is the in vivo microenvironment for oocyte maturation and includes a variety of proteins that could be involved in oocyte development and fertilization. We therefore used a proteomic approach to identify new HFF proteins. HFF from mature human follicles was obtained from five women following oocyte collection for in vitro fertilization (IVF). Ethanol-precipitated HFF run on two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2DE) produced approximately 250 Coomassie brilliant blue-stained spots, 64 of which were identified using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-mass spectrometry (MALDIMS). In this study, several proteins including complement factor H, inter-${\alpha}$ (globulin) inhibitor H4, inter-${\alpha}$-trypsin inhibitor heavy chain H4 precursor, human zinc-${\alpha}$-2-glycoprotein chain B, PRO2619, PRO02044, and complex-forming glycoprotein HC were new proteins that have not been previously reported in HFF using proteomic methods. Additionally, we identified alloalbumin venezia for the first time from trichloroacetic acid (TCA)-precipitated HFF. These HFF proteins could serve as new biomarkers for important human reproductive processes.

• Molecular & Cellular Toxicology
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.150-156
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• 2008

The photoprotective effects of minerals from Korean indigenous ores, consisting mainly of sericite, on UVA-irradiated human dermal fibroblast (HDF) were examined. Zymographic analysis showed that the treatment of the minerals significantly reduced the UVA-enhanced MMP-1 activity and mRNA level. The minerals also showed strong inhibitory effect on MMP-2 activity and mRNA expression. Moreover, the minerals were better than polyphenol in reducing MMP-1 and MMP-2 expressions. Notably, the minerals significantly enhanced collagen biosynthesis in the HDF. Inhibition of the elastase activity and protection against the oxidatively damaged HDF cell were also found in the presence of the minerals. Taken together, the ore minerals may be used as the potent photo-protective and anti-skin-aging ingredients which can prevent skin cell damage by UVA.

• Molecular & Cellular Toxicology
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.170-176
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• 2008

The quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) of a set of 35 flavonoid compounds presenting antioxidant activity was established by means of Genetic Algorithm-Multiple Linear Regression (GA-MLR) technique. Four-parametric models for two sets of data, the 1,1-diphenyl-2-picryl hydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging activity $(R^2=0.788,\;Q^2_{cv}=0.699\;and\;Q^2_{ext}=0.577)$ and scavenging activity of reactive oxgen species (ROS) induced by $H_2O_2 (R^=0.829,\;Q^2_{cv}=0.754\;and\;Q^2_{ext}=0.573)$ were obtained with low external predictive ability on a mass basis, respectively. Each model gave some different mechanistic aspects of the flavonoid compounds tested in terms of the radical scavenging activity. Topological charge, H-bonding complex and deprotonation processes were likely to be involved in the radical scavenging activity.

• Molecular & Cellular Toxicology
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.72-77
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• 2008

The present study was undertaken to determine whether pioglitazone treatment influences on the agonist-induced vascular smooth muscle contraction and, if so, to investigate the related mechanism. The measurement of isometric contractions using a computerized data acquisition system was combined with molecular experiments. Pioglitazone decreased Rho-kinase activating agonist-induced contraction but not phorbol ester-induced contraction suggesting the least involvement of $Ca^{2+}$-independent thin filament regulation of contractility. Furthermore, pioglitazone decreased thromboxane $A_2$ mimeticinduced phosphorylation of MYPT1 at Thr855, the newly-highlighted site, instead of Thr696. In conclusion, this study provides the evidence and possible related mechanism concerning the vasorelaxing effect of pioglitazone as an antihypertensive on the agonist-induced contraction in rat aortic rings regardless of endothelial function.

• Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering:BBE
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.187-198
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• 2006

The aromatic hydrocarbons (AHs), which include benzene, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and dioxin, are important chemical and environmental contaminants in industry that usually cause various diseases. Over the years, numerous studies have described and evaluated the adverse health effects induced by AHs. Currently, "Omics" technologies, transcriptomics and proteomics, have been applied in AH toxicity studies. Proteomics has been used to identify molecular mechanisms and biomarkers associated with global chemical toxicity. It could enhance our ability to characterize chemical-induced toxicities and to identify noninvasive biomarkers. The proteomic approach (e.g. 2-dimensional electrophoresis [2-DE]), can be used to observe changes in protein expression during chemical exposure with high sensitivity and specificity. Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) and electrospray ionization-quadrupole (ESI-Q)-TOF MS/MS are recognized as the most important protein identification tools. This review describes proteomic technologies and their application in the proteomic analysis of AH toxicity.

• Molecular & Cellular Toxicology
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.262-265
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• 2006

We report a case of phenytoin toxicity due to impaired drug metabolism in a patient homozygous for $CYP2C9^{\ast}3$. A 46-year-old woman was taking phenytoin to prevent postoperative seizures. She attained high serum phenytoin levels at the standard doses (300 mg/day) and developed symptoms of phenytoin toxicity including blurred vision, nausea and headache. The patient was treated with reduced doses of phenytoin and then phenytoin therapy was finally discontinued. Genotyping for CYP2C9 revealed that this patient had a homozygous genotype, $CYP2C9^{\ast}3/^{\ast}3$. This is the first Korean case of phenytoin toxicity with homozygous $CYP2C9^{\ast}3$. This case suggests the clinical usefulness of pharmacogenetic testing for individualized dosage adjustments of phenytoin.