• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• 제24권7호
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• pp.914-920
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• 2014

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) possesses a higher rate of distant recurrence and a poorer prognosis than other breast cancer subtypes. Interestingly, most of the heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90) client proteins are oncoproteins, and some are closely related to unfavorable factors of TNBC patients. 17-Demethoxy-reblastatin (17-DR), a novel non-benzoquinone-type geldanamycin analog, exhibited potent Hsp90 ATPase inhibition activity. In this study, the anticancer effects of 17-DR on TNBC MDA-MB-231 cells were investigated. These results showed that 17-DR inhibited cell proliferation, induced apoptosis, and suppressed cell invasion and migration in the MDA-MB-231 cells. Down-regulation of the key Hsp90-dependent tumor-driving molecules, such as RIP1 and MMP-9, by 17-DR may be related to these effects. Taken together, our results suggest that 17-DR has potential as a therapeutic agent for the treatment of TNBC.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• 제16권2호
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• pp.20-43
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• 2017

While the Internet has been used to galvanise people for the collective good, many have voiced concerns over the noise and vitriol present online and polarisation. In Singapore where the government regulates traditional mainstream media such as print and broadcast, the online space has been described as a "Wild Wild West" rife with rumours, untruths and misinformation. Such developments do not only exert a potential negative effect on the deliberative nature of public discourse but also skew bias towards the online space, affecting the ability of online users to communicate with authority and power. This study seeks to examine the rationality of the cyberspace through using a new "rationality" framework to analyse political discourse online. Comprising objectivity, emotionality and partisanship, the rationality framework was applied to a content analysis of 197 blogs with political content in 2014. The analysis indicated that the online political space was not the Wild Wild West that it was touted to be with significant levels of objectivity and non-partisanship. There was a stark absence of emotional discourse, and relationships were observed between bloggers' anonymity and rationality. Cognisant of academia's and policymakers' interest on the quality and effects of online discourse, the proposed analytical framework and the study findings hold implications for both developed and developing countries.

• 한국자기공명학회논문지
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• 제19권1호
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• pp.36-41
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• 2015

The causative agent of shigellosis, Shigella flexneri, is a Gram-negative anaerobic bacterial pathogen that causes one of the most infectious bacterial dysenteries in humans. It originates infection by invading cells of the colonic epithelium using a type III secretion system. Despite S. flexneri is closely linked with the human disease, structural study is very deficient. Here, we have initiated NMR study of SF1002 which is the uncharacterized protein from S. flexneri strain 5a M90T. Based on a series of triple resonance spectra, sequence-specific assignments of the backbone amide resonances of SF1002 could be completed. This NMR study would contribute to the structural genomics of S.flexneri.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• 제20권2호
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• pp.108-128
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• 2021

Research on the news coverage of North Korea has been paying less attention to social media platforms than to legacy media. An increasing number of social media users post, retweet, share, interpret, and set agendas on North Korea. The accessibility of international users and North Korea's publicity purposes make social media a venue for expression, news diversity, and framing about the nation. This study examined the sentiment of Twitter posts on North Korea from a framing perspective and the relationship between network strengths and sentiment from a social network perspective. Data were collected using two tools: Jupyter Notebook with Python 3.6 for preliminary analysis and NodeXL for main analysis. A total of 11,957 tweets, 10,000 of which were collected using Python and 1,957 tweets using NodeXL, about North Korea between June 20-21, 2020 were collected. Results demonstrated that there was more negative sentiment than positive sentiment about North Korea in the sampled Twitter posts. Some users belonging to small network sizes reached out to others on Twitter to build networks and spread positive information about North Korea. Influential users tended to be impartial to sentiment about North Korea, while some Twitter users with a small network exhibited high percentages of positive words about North Korea. Overall, marginalized populations with network bonding were more likely to express positive sentiment about North Korea than were influencers at the center of networks.

• 대한의생명과학회지
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• 제27권3호
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• pp.134-141
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• 2021

c-Jun N-terminal kinases (JNKs) have a Janus face, regulating both cell apoptosis and survival. The present study focused on understanding the function of JNK in tumor development and the chemoresistance underlying JNK-mediated cancer cell survival. We identified an inhibitor of JNK1, an important regulator of cancer cell survival. Kinase assay data showed that JNK1-dependent c-Jun phosphorylation was inhibited by indirubin derivatives. In particular, indirubin-3-monoxime (I3M) directly inhibited the phosphorylation of c-Jun in vitro, with a half inhibition dose (IC₅₀) of 10 nM. I3M had a significant inhibitory effect on JNK1 activity. Furthermore, we carried out assays to determine the viability, migration, and proliferation of breast cancer cells. Our results demonstrated that cell growth, scratched wound healing, and colony forming abilities were inhibited by the JNK inhibitor SP600125 and I3M. The combination of SP600125 and I3M significantly decreased cancer cell proliferation, compared with either SP600125 or I3M alone. Our studies may provide further support for JNK1-targeting cancer therapy using the indirubin derivative I3M in breast cancer.

• 한국미생물·생명공학회지
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• 제47권1호
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• pp.34-42
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• 2019

Apigenin, a common natural product that is found in many plants and vegetables, has been reported to have many biological activities, including antioxidative, anti-inflammatory, and anticancer effects. The triple-negative breast carcinoma cell line MDA-MB-231 is known to be highly invasive and resistant to chemotherapy. In this study, we investigated the anticancer effect of apigenin on human MDA-MB-231 cells. First, the cytotoxicity of apigenin toward MDA-MB-231 cells was analyzed by MTT assay. Then, the cell cycle and apoptotic effects of apigenin were examined, and the molecular mechanism underlying its anticancer activity was explored. Apigenin inhibited the growth of the cells in a dose-dependent manner, correlating with the cell cycle arrest at the G2-M phase as well as an increase of early apoptosis. The cell-cycle inhibitory effect was highly associated with the increased expression of p21 and decreased expression of CDK6, cyclin D1, and cyclin B1. The induction of apoptosis by apigenin was associated with the upregulated expression of cleaved PARP and cleaved caspase-3, -7, and -9.

• 한국멀티미디어학회논문지
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• 제24권8호
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• pp.1000-1011
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• 2021

In recent years, using Deep Learning methods to apply for medical and biomedical image analysis has seen many advancements. In clinical, using Deep Learning-based approaches for cancer image analysis is one of the key applications for cancer detection and treatment. However, the scarcity and shortage of labeling images make the task of cancer detection and analysis difficult to reach high accuracy. In 2015, the Unet model was introduced and gained much attention from researchers in the field. The success of Unet model is the ability to produce high accuracy with very few input images. Since the development of Unet, there are many variants and modifications of Unet related architecture. This paper proposes a new approach of using Unet++ with pretrained EfficientNet as backbone architecture for breast tumor cell nuclei segmentation and uses the multi-organ transfer learning approach to segment nuclei of breast tumor cells. We attempt to experiment and evaluate the performance of the network on the MonuSeg training dataset and Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) testing dataset, both are Hematoxylin and Eosin (H & E)-stained images. The results have shown that EfficientUnet++ architecture and the multi-organ transfer learning approach had outperformed other techniques and produced notable accuracy for breast tumor cell nuclei segmentation.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• 제31권5호
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• pp.473-483
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• 2023

Many cancers arise from sites of chronic inflammation, which creates an inflammatory microenvironment surrounding the tumor. Inflammatory substances secreted by cells in the inflammatory environment can induce the proliferation and survival of cancer cells, thereby promoting cancer metastasis and angiogenesis. Therefore, it is important to identify the role of inflammatory factors in cancer progression. This review summarizes the signaling pathways and roles of C-reactive protein (CRP) in various cancer types, including breast, liver, renal, and pancreatic cancer, and the tumor microenvironment. Mounting evidence suggests the role of CRP in breast cancer, particularly in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), which is typically associated with a worse prognosis. Increased CRP in the inflammatory environment contributes to enhanced invasiveness and tumor formation in TNBC cells. CRP promotes endothelial cell formation and angiogenesis and contributes to the initiation and progression of atherosclerosis. In pancreatic and kidney cancers, CRP contributes to tumor progression. In liver cancer, CRP regulates inflammatory responses and lipid metabolism. CRP modulates the activity of various signaling molecules in macrophages and monocytes present in the tumor microenvironment, contributing to tumor development, the immune response, and inflammation. In the present review, we overviewed the role of CRP signaling pathways and the association between inflammation and cancer in various types of cancer. Identifying the interactions between CRP signaling pathways and other inflammatory mediators in cancer progression is crucial for understanding the complex relationship between inflammation and cancer.

• 한국미생물·생명공학회지
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• 제51권4호
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• pp.507-516
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• 2023

Eradication of Helicobacter pylori infection is an essential strategy to decrease the risk of developing gastric cancer. However, the standard triple therapy has negative aspects associated with side effects and the emergence of antibiotic resistance. Therefore, alternative therapies are required to enhance the management of H. pylori infection effectively. In this study we examined the effect of emodin on the amelioration of inflammatory response due to H. pylori infection. Our results indicated that emodin treatment effectively decreased the expression of virulence genes, including sabA, vacA, cagL, cagA, sabA, and suppressed the adhesion ability of H. pylori to AGS cells. Emodin has been shown inhibitory effects on the inflammasome pathway through reductions in VacA translocation, lowering ROS stress, cleaved Caspase-1, NLRP3, and cleaved Gasdermin D levels, thereby lowered pyroptosis in infected cells. In summary, our study demonstrated that emodin has the ability to attenuate inflammation caused by H. pylori by modulating virulence gene expression and decreasing VacA translocation. Further study is required to evaluate the therapeutic efficacy of emodin in treating H. pylori infection and better understand the underlying mechanisms.

• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• 제26권1호
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• pp.65-73
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• 2008

목적: 40세 이하의 젊은 여성 유방암 환자는 나이 든 여성 보다 BRCA1과 BRCA2 배선돌연변이의 빈도가 상대적으로 높다. 유방암 가족력이 있거나 젊은 나이에 유방암을 진단받은 백인 여성들의 BRCA1/2 돌연변이 암에 대한 연구에서 면역조직화학적으로 BRCA1/2 돌연변이 음성인 암과 다른 특성이 발견되었다. 이 연구의 목적은 유방암 가족력과 관계없이 젊은 나이에 유방암이 발생한 한국 여성을 대상으로 BRCA1/2 돌연변이 유뮤에 따라, 그리고 BRCA1과 BRCA2 각각의 돌연변이에 따라 면역조직화학적 특성으로 상호간의 구별이 가능한지, 면역조직화학적 검사로 BRCA1/2 돌연변이의 가능성을 알아보는 것이 가능한지를 조사하는데 있으며 BRCA와 관련된 암의 예후인자로서의 역할도 분석하였다. 대상 및 방법: BRCA1/2 검사를 시행한 40세 이하의 한국인 젊은 여성 유방암 환자의 유방암 수술 후 병리조직을 찾아서 조직미세배열법으로 슬라이드를 만들었다. 이 검체들의 병리조직, 등급, 림프절 전이, T 병기, 에스트로겐 수용체, 프로게스테론 수용체 및 HER-2 상태와 BRCA1/2의 관계를 비교하였다. 그리고 이 환자들의 BRCA 돌연변이 상태와 면역조직학적, 병리학적 상태와 예후 인자로서의 역할도 조사하였다. 결과: BRCA1/2 돌연변이를 조사한 101명 중 14명에서 16개의 돌연변이가 있었으며(13.9%), 유방암-난소암 가족력이 있는 경우(4/14, 28.6%), 양측성 유방암이 있는 경우(3/9, 33.3%)에 BRCA1/2 돌연변이 빈도가 높았다. 에스트로겐 수용체 음성인 경우 BRCA1/2 양성이 19.4%(12/62)로 에스트로겐 수용체 양성 비율 5.1%(2/37)에 비해 유의하게 높았고(p=0.038), HER-2 음성인 경우 BRCA1/2 돌연변이 음성 비율이 16.5%(13/79)로 양성 비율 4.5%(1/22)에 비해 높은 경향을 보였으며(p=0.073), 프로게스테론 수용체는 차이가 없었다. 에스트로겐 수용체, 프로게스테론 수용체 및 HER-2 모두 음성인 경우(triple negative)는 BRCA1/2 돌연변이 비율이 24.2%(8/33)로 매우 높았다. 종양의 크기, 림프절 전이 상태, HER-2 상태는 단변량 변수와 다변량 변수 모두에서 무병 생존에 유의한 영향을 미치는 인자 이었으나 BRCA1/2 돌연변이 상태는 무병생존에 유의한 인자가 아니었다. 결론: 면역조직화학적으로 에스트로겐 수용체나 HER-2 음성을 보이는 젊은 유방암 환자에서 BRCA1/2 돌연변이 발생이 유의하게 높았으며, 프로게스테론 수용체까지 모두 음성인 경우 BRCA1/2 돌연변이가 있을 확률이 24.2%로 높아서 유방암 유전자 돌연변이 가능성을 예측하는데 도움을 줄 수 있다. 한국인 젊은 여성 유방암 환자에서 BRCA1/2 돌연변이 상태가 무병생존에 유의한 인자는 아니었으나 좀 더 많은 환자와 긴 추적관찰 기간의 추가적인 연구가 필요하다.