• The Korea Journal of Herbology
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.17-26
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• 2018

Objective : In this study, we investigated the effect of SAL5(mixing extracts of Schisandra chinensis Baillon, Artemisia capillaris Thunb., and Aloe vera Linne) on chronic ethanol-induced fatty liver model. Methods : Sprague-Dawley male rats were fed Liber-DeCarli (normal), ethanol liquid diet (control), SAL5 (200 mg/kg). We administrated the SAL5 on chronic ethanol-induced fatty liver model for 5 weeks. We measured alkaline phosphtase (ALP), alanine transminase (ALT), aspartate transminase (AST) and ${\gamma}-glutamyl$ transpeptase (${\gamma}-GTP$) in serum and triglyceride (TG), superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase, glutathione (GSH) and malondialdehyde (MDA) level in liver. Liver histopathology was examined by Hematoxylin-eosin and Oil red O staining of the fixed liver tissues. Real-time PCR was performed to measure the mRNA expression of inflammatory cytokines and MMP-2, MMP-9. Results : SAL5 administration resulted in significantly decreased liver marker enzymes activities of alanine transminase (ALT), ${\gamma}-glutamyl$ transpeptase (${\gamma}-GTP$) in serum and triglyceride (TG) activities in liver. The control group decreased the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) with the reduced level of glutathione (GSH) in liver. On the other hand, SAL5 group increased the activities of SOD, CAT and the level of GSH. SAL5 delayed the development of an alcoholic fatty liver by reversing fat accumulation in the liver, as evidenced in histological observations. The gene expression of mRNA were significantly decreased at the $IL-1{\beta}$, $TNF-{\alpha}$, NOS-II and MMP-2 by SAL5. Conclusions : These results indicate that SAL5 might have protective effect chronic ethanol-induced fatty liver models.

• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.377-383
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• 2023

The effects of exogenous sodium nitroprusside (SNP, nitric oxide donor) on the growth, yield, photosynthetic characteristics, and antioxidant enzyme activity of kimchi cabbage (Brassica rapa L. subsp. pekinensis (Lour.) Hanelt) was studied under the low temperature conditions. Kimchi cabbages were treated with SNP of three concentrations (7.5, 15, 30 mg·L^-1) for three times at four-day intervals and exposed to low temperature (16/7℃) stress for seven days. SNP treatment induced increases of net photosynthetic rate (Pn), stomatal conductance (Gs), intracellular CO₂ concentration (Ci) and transpiration rate (Tr) under the stress condition with the highest level after the third treatment. The contents of malondialdehyde (MDA) and H₂O₂ were significantly lower in the treatment of SNP compared to the non-treated control. The activity of ascorbate peroxidase (APX), catalase (CAT), peroxidase (POD) and superoxide dismutase (SOD), increased in treated plants by up to 38, 187, 24 and 175%, respectively compared to the non-treated control. SNP-treated and untreated plants had similar growth characteristics. Compared to the control group, SNP-treatment increased fresh weight and leaf area by 5%. Overall, our findings suggest that the application of sodium nitroprusside to the leaves contributes to reducing physiological damage and enhancing the activities of antioxidant enzymes, thereby improving low temperature stress tolerance in kimchi cabbage.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.20 no.10
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• pp.1490-1497
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• 2010

The present study aimed to investigate the level of accumulated heavy metal in various tissues of Carassius auratus after exposure to Cadmium (Cd), histologically and physiologically. After treating C. auratus with Cd, the accumulated Cd in gill tissues was detected to be of the highest content, and showed the lowest content in integument tissues. Also, Cd content increased in a time dependent manner and showed the highest accumulation in the tissues exposed for 20 days. Antioxidant enzyme activities showedhigher activity in the gill and integument than in the kidney and liver tissues. In the case of SOD, antioxidation activity of SOD in all Cd exposed tissues was higher than in unexposed tissues. The activities of SOD and CAT also became higher after Cd exposure. Gill tissues exposed to Cd showed an increased number of mucous cells between lamella in a time dependent manner. In addition, the gills showed morphological changes such as edema, exfoliation of epithelial cells, and fusion of the secondary lamellae. Also, exposure to Cd for 20 days had an effect on gill tissues, causing membrane damage in the mitochondria and nucleus. In kidney tissues, atrophied glomerulus was observed, and the empty space in Bowman's capsule was wider.

• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.1557-1562
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• 2005

A mechanism of hair cell damage caused by noise and ototoxic agents is mediated through generation of free radicals and reactive oxygen species (ROS). It is known that most of animals have defense systems to protect against ROS, and the cochlea of inner ear in animals also has ROS defense systems including several antioxidant enzymes such as superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidase (GPX), glutathione reductase (GR), and glutathione (GSH), which efficiently detoxifying ROS generated under normal condition. Steamed roots of Rehmannia glutinosa have been traditionally used in Oriental medicine for the treatment of auditory disease such as tinnitus, vertigo, and hearing loss as well as inflammatory diseases, hectic fever, night sweat, and headache. In the present study, we showed that the ethanol extract from steamed roots of R. giutinosa (ESRG) increased the antioxidant enzymes such as SOD, CAT, GPX, and GR activities and GSH level in HEI-OC1 auditory cells. This extract itself did not show any significant cytotoxicity up to $50{\mu}g/ml$. Our results further support the view that ESRG is promising sources of potential antioxidants. Future studies will be aimed at investigating the effects of ESRG on the regulation of cellular mechanisms and isolating and identifying the substances responsible for the regulation of antioxidant enzyme system from the plant extracts.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.584-592
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• 2004

A thermostable $\beta$-glycosidase gene, tfi $\beta$-gly, was cloned from the genomic library of Thermus filiformis Wai33 A1. ifi $\beta$-gly consists of 1,296 bp nucleotide sequence and encodes a polypeptide of 431 amino acids. It shares a strong amino acid sequence similarity with the $\beta$-glycosidases from other Thermus spp. belonging to the glycosyl hydrolase family 1. In the present study, the enzyme was overexpressed in Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3) using the pET21b(+) vector system. The recombinant enzyme was purified to homogeneity by heat treatment and a $Ni^{2+}$-affinity chromatography. Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) showed that the recombinant Tfi $\beta$-glycosidase was a monomeric form with molecular mass of 49 kDa. The temperature and pH range for optimal activity of the purified enzyme were 80- $90^{\circ}C$ and 5.0-6.0, respectively. Ninety-three percent of the enzyme activity was remained at $70^{\circ}C$ after 12 h, and its half-life at $80^{\circ}C$ was 6 h, indicating that Tfi $\beta$-glycosidase is highly thermostable. Based on its K_m$, or $K_{cat}K_m$, ratio, Tfi $\beta$-glycosidase appeared to have higher affinity for $\beta$-D-glucoside than for $\beta$-D-galactoside, however, $K_{cat} for \beta$-D-galactoside was much higher than that for $\beta$-D-glucoside. The activity for lactose hydrolysis was proportionally increased at $70^{\circ}C$ and pH 7.0 without substrate inhibition until reaching 250 mM lactose concentration. The specific activity of Tfi TEX>$\beta$-glycosidase on 138 mM lactose at $70{^\circ}C$ and pH 7.0 was 134.9 U/mg. Consequently, this newly cloned enzyme appears to have a valuable advantage of conducting biotechnological processes at elevated temperature during milk pasteurization in the production of low-lactose milk.

• Journal of Pharmacopuncture
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.7-18
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• 2015

Objectives: Lawsone (1,4 naphthoquinone) is a non redox cycling compound that can be catalyzed by DT diaphorase (DTD) into 1,2,4-trihydroxynaphthalene (THN), which can generate reactive oxygen species by auto oxidation. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the toxicity of the phytomarker 1,4 naphthoquinone and its metabolite THN by using the molecular docking program AutoDock 4. Methods: The 3D structure of ligands such as hydrogen peroxide ($H_2O_2$), nitric oxide synthase (NOS), catalase (CAT), glutathione (GSH), glutathione reductase (GR), glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PDH) and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate hydrogen (NADPH) were drawn using hyperchem drawing tools and minimizing the energy of all pdb files with the help of hyperchem by $MM^+$ followed by a semi-empirical (PM3) method. The docking process was studied with ligand molecules to identify suitable dockings at protein binding sites through annealing and genetic simulation algorithms. The program auto dock tools (ADT) was released as an extension suite to the python molecular viewer used to prepare proteins and ligands. Grids centered on active sites were obtained with spacings of $54{\times}55{\times}56$, and a grid spacing of 0.503 was calculated. Comparisons of Global and Local Search Methods in Drug Docking were adopted to determine parameters; a maximum number of 250,000 energy evaluations, a maximum number of generations of 27,000, and mutation and crossover rates of 0.02 and 0.8 were used. The number of docking runs was set to 10. Results: Lawsone and THN can be considered to efficiently bind with NOS, CAT, GSH, GR, G6PDH and NADPH, which has been confirmed through hydrogen bond affinity with the respective amino acids. Conclusion: Naphthoquinone derivatives of lawsone, which can be metabolized into THN by a catalyst DTD, were examined. Lawsone and THN were found to be identically potent molecules for their affinities for selected proteins.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.29 no.7
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• pp.1043-1052
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• 2019

Active lipase-producing bacterium Burkholderia gladioli Bps-1 was rapidly isolated using a modified trypan blue and tetracycline, ampicillin plate. The electro-phoretically pure enzyme was obtained by purification using ethanol precipitation, ion-exchange chromatography, and gel filtration chromatography. The molecular weight was 34.6 kDa and the specific activity was determined to be 443.9 U/mg. The purified lipase showed the highest activity after hydrolysis with $p-NPC_{16}$ at a pH of 8.5 and $50^{\circ}C$, and the $K_m$, $k_{cat}$, and $k_{cat}/K_m$ values were 1.05 mM, $292.95s^{-1}$ and $279s^{-1}mM^{-1}$, respectively. The lipase was highly stable at $7.5{\leq}pH{\leq}10.0$. $K^+$ and $Na^+$ exerted activation effects on the lipase which had favorable tolerance to short-chain alcohols with its residual enzyme activity being 110% after being maintained in 30% ethanol for 1 h. The results demonstrated that the lipase produced by the strain B. gladioli Bps-1 has high enzyme activity and is an alkaline lipase. The lipase has promising chemical properties for a range of applications in the food-processing and detergent industries, and has particularly high potential for use in the manufacture of biodiesel.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.27 no.11
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• pp.147-155
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• 2022

In this study, we developed a system to dynamically balance a daily stock portfolio and performed trading simulations using gradient boosting and genetic algorithms. We collected various stock market data from stocks listed on the KOSPI and KOSDAQ markets, including investor-specific transaction data. Subsequently, we indexed the data as a preprocessing step, and used feature engineering to modify and generate variables for training. First, we experimentally compared the performance of three popular gradient boosting algorithms in terms of accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score, including XGBoost, LightGBM, and CatBoost. Based on the results, in a second experiment, we used a LightGBM model trained on the collected data along with genetic algorithms to predict and select stocks with a high daily probability of profit. We also conducted simulations of trading during the period of the testing data to analyze the performance of the proposed approach compared with the KOSPI and KOSDAQ indices in terms of the CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate), MDD (Maximum Draw Down), Sharpe ratio, and volatility. The results showed that the proposed strategies outperformed those employed by the Korean stock market in terms of all performance metrics. Moreover, our proposed LightGBM model with a genetic algorithm exhibited competitive performance in predicting stock price movements.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.965-972
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• 2020

Objective: Astragalus membranaceus root is a well-known traditional Chinese herbal medicine with many biological active constituents. This study was conducted to examine the effects of Astragalus membranaceus root powder (AMP) on growth performance, serum antioxidant and immune response in finishing lambs. Methods: A total of thirty-six Guangling fat-tailed ram lambs (body weight = 19±2 kg, mean±standard deviation) were randomly assigned to one of six treatments for a 40 d feeding period, with the first 10 d for adaptation. Treatments consisted of the lambs' basal diets with addition of 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, and 30 g/kg of diet of AMP. Results: Response to supplementation level of AMP was quadratic (p≤0.032) for final weight and ADG with the greatest at 10 g/kg of diet, but dry matter intake was not affected (p≥0.227) by treatments. The increase of AMP supplementation resulted in a quadratic response in contents of triglyceride and creatinine (p<0.05), with the lowest values for 10 and 20 g/kg of diet, respectively. A linear and quadratic decrease was observed in activity of alkaline phosphatase in serum of lambs. As the AMP supplementation increased, the activities of total superoxide dismutase and total antioxidant capacity increased linearly (p≤0.018) and hydroxyl radical (OH^-) decreased linearly (p = 0.002). For catalase (CAT) and malondialdehyde (MDA), quadratic (p≤0.001) effects were observed among treatments, with the greatest CAT and lowest MDA values at 10 g/kg AMP. Additionally, supplementing AMP up to a level of 10 or 15 g/kg of diet quadratically increased immunoglobulin and interleukin contents in the serum. Conclusion: The results indicated that AMP can be used as natural feed additive in the ration of lambs to improve ADG, antioxidant status, and immune functions, and the optimal dose was 10 g/kg of diet under the condition of this experiment.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.231-238
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• 2014

BACKGROUND: Biochar (BC) has a great potential for enhancing soil fertility and carbon sequestration while facilitating beneficial waste disposition. Therefore, it is essential to assess and mitigate any inadvertent consequences associated with soil biochar amendment. Earthworm activity is very vital in the soil system, yet there are a limited number of studies that have examined their impact resulting from biochar application to soil. METHODS AND RESULTS: In this study, the survival, growth, reproductive tests, and oxidative DNA damage tests (measured by 8-hydroxydeoxyguanosine (8-OHdG) and catalase (CAT) activities) to assess the potential toxicity to earthworm Eisenia fetida in artificial soil amended with BCs were investigated. The BCs derived from perilla meal, sesame meal, and pumpkin seed were pyrolyzed at 300 and $550^{\circ}C$, and then amended with soil at a rate of 5%. All the earthworms survived, but lost weight compared to control soil after 28 day incubation period. Moreover, the BC-amended soils did not significantly affect the cocoon numbers of earthworms. Slightly higher concentrations of 8-OHdG and CAT were observed in earthworms present in BC-treated soil than those in control soil. Furthermore, the 8-OHdG concentrations in the soil amended with BC produced at $550^{\circ}C$ were greater than those at $300^{\circ}C$, and it slightly decreased as the incubation time increased. CONCLUSION: These observations could be due to higher contents of toxic metal(loid)s and also higher pH in BCs pyrolyzed at $550^{\circ}C$ than $300^{\circ}C$. While BC is efficiently being used in agricultural fields, this study suggests that it is required to assess the unintended negative impacts of BC on soil ecosystems.