• Journal of Life Science
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.285-290
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• 2020

Foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV), a member of the genus Aphthovirus in the Picornaviridae family, affects wild and domesticated ruminants and pigs. FMDV causes various clinical symptoms, including severe inflammation in infected tissue. Genome RNA of FMDV shows a positive single-strand chain approximately 8.3 kb long and encodes a single long open reading frame (ORF). The ORF is translated into structural and non-structural proteins by viral proteases. The FMDV 2C protein is one of the non-structural proteins encoded by FMDV and plays a critical role in FMD pathogenesis, including inflammation, apoptosis, and viral replication. In this study, we examined whether FMDV 2C induces intracellular expression of pro-inflammatory cytokine tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα). FMDV 2C expression in pig IBRS-2 cells increased mRNA and protein expression of TNFα at the transcriptional level via activation of TNFα promoter. Treatment with 4-phenylbutyric acid, an endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress reducer, decreased TNFα expression induced by FMDV 2C. Activating transcription factor 4 (ATF4), a transcription factor mediating ER stress response, induced transactivation of TNFα promoter and expression of mRNA and protein of TNFα. However, the dominant negative mutant of ATF4 did not induce FMDV 2C-mediated TNFα expression. The results indicate that FMDV 2C protein increases clinical inflammation via ATF4-mediated TNFα expression and is associated with ER stress induction.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.376-386
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• 2016

Apoptosis induction has been proposed as an efficient mechanism by which malignant tumor cells can be removed following chemotherapy. The intrinsic mitochondria-dependent apoptotic pathway is frequently implicated in chemotherapy-induced tumor cell apoptosis. Since DNA-damaging agent (DDA)-induced apoptosis is mainly regulated by the tumor suppressor protein p53, and since more than half of clinical cancers possess inactive p53 mutants, microtubule-damaging agents (MDAs), of which apoptotic effect is mainly exerted via p53-independent routes, can be promising choice for cancer chemotherapy. Recently, we found that the apoptotic signaling pathway induced by MDAs (nocodazole, 17α-estradiol, or 2-methoxyestradiol) commonly proceeded through mitotic spindle defect-mediated prometaphase arrest, prolonged Cdk1 activation, and subsequent phosphorylation of Bcl-2, Mcl-1, and Bim in human acute leukemia Jurkat T cells. These microtubule damage-mediated alterations could render the cellular context susceptible to the onset of mitochondria-dependent apoptosis by triggering Bak activation, Δψm loss, and resultant caspase cascade activation. In contrast, when the MDA-induced Bak activation was inhibited by overexpression of anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 family proteins (Bcl-2 or Bcl-xL), the cells in prometaphase arrest failed to induce apoptosis, and instead underwent mitotic slippage and endoreduplication cycle, leading to formation of populations with 8N and 16N DNA content. These data indicate that cellular apoptogenic mechanism is critical for preventing polyploid formation following MDA treatment. Since the formation of polyploid cells, which are genetically unstable, may cause acquisition of therapy resistance and disease relapse, there is a growing interest in developing new combination chemotherapies to prevent polyploidization in tumors after MDA treatment.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.24 no.10
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• pp.1046-1054
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• 2014

Beta-1,3-glucanase is widely used in various biotechnological and industrial processes, with over-production required to enable versatile utilization. We examined the overexpression of ${\beta}$-1,3-glucanase (EXGA) from Aspergillus oryzae using ${\delta}$-sequence-mediated integration. We constructed $pRS{\delta}$-exgA and $pRS{\delta}K$-exgA plasmids for integration of the EXGA gene into various chromosomes of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. These plasmids contain the ADH1 promoter for constitutive expression, a signal sequence (exoinulinase signal sequence [INU1 s.s]) for secretory production, and a ${\delta}$-sequence for integration of ${\beta}$-1,3-glucanase. The $pRS{\delta}$-exgA plasmid was transformed into the S. cerevisiae $BY4742{\Delta}exg1$ strain, and ${\beta}$-1.3-glucanase was stably overexpressed and secreted. Another plasmid, $pRS{\delta}K$-exgA, was introduced into the S. cerevisiae $BY4742{\Delta}exg1$ (YKY082) strain, and overexpression of ${\beta}$-1,3-glucanase was examined by inducible integration under geneticin selection. The activity of ${\beta}$-1,3-glucanase increased in accordance with a rise in the geneticin concentration, with 0.8 mg/ml of geneticin suitable for overexpression of ${\beta}$-1,3-glucanase. Subsequently, $pRS{\delta}K$-exgA was repeatedly transformed for sequential ${\delta}$-integration. The activity of ${\beta}$-1,3-glucanase reached about 0.063 unit/ml/$OD_{600}$, 0.095 unit/ml/$OD_{600}$, 0.131 unit/ml/$OD_{600}$ and 0.165 unit/ml/$OD_{600}$ by the first, second, third, and fourth round of integration, respectively. According to the increase in the activity of ${\beta}$-1,3-glucanase by sequential ${\delta}$-integration, the copy number (integration rate) of the EXGA gene also increased in various chromosomes. These results suggest that recombinant ${\beta}$-1,3-glucanase activity can be sequentially increased by repeated ${\delta}$-sequence integration.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.349-356
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• 2015

Thanks to recent advances in next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology, diverse livestock species have been dissected at the genome-wide sequence level. As for cattle, there are currently four Korean indigenous breeds registered with the Domestic Animal Diversity Information System of the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations: Hanwoo, Chikso, Heugu, and Jeju Heugu. These native genetic resources were recently whole-genome resequenced using various NGS technologies, providing enormous single nucleotide polymorphism information across the genomes. The NGS application further provided biological such that Korean native cattle are genetically distant from some cattle breeds of European origins. In addition, the NGS technology was successfully applied to detect structural variations, particularly copy number variations that were usually difficult to identify at the genome-wide level with reasonable accuracy. Despite the success, those recent studies also showed an inherent limitation in sequencing only a representative individual of each breed. To elucidate the biological implications of the sequenced data, further confirmatory studies should be followed by sequencing or validating the population of each breed. Because NGS sequencing prices have consistently dropped, various population genomic theories can now be applied to the sequencing data obtained from the population of each breed of interest. There are still few such population studies available for the Korean native cattle breeds, but this situation will soon be improved with the recent initiative for NGS sequencing of diverse native livestock resources, including the Korean native cattle breeds.

• Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.55-62
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• 1995

To understand the molecular structure of Korean garlic viruses, cDNA cloning of virus genomic RNA was attempted. Virus particles were isolated from virus-infected garlic leaves and a cDNA library was constructed from garlic virus RNA. One of these clones, S81, selected by random sequencing has been identified as a member of potexvirus group other than potyvirus and carlavirus. The clone is 873 bp long contains most of the coat protein (CP) coding region and 3'-noncoding region including poly(A) tail. A putative polyadenylation signal sequence (AAUAAA) and the hexanucleotide motif (ACUUAA), a replicational cis-acting element conserved in the 3'-noncoding region of potexvirus RNAs are noticed. The clone S81 shows about 30-40% identity in both nucleotide and amino acid sequences with CPs of potexviruses. The genome size of the virus was analysed to be 7.46 knt by Northern blot analysis, which was longer than those of other potexviruses. The open reading frame encoding CP was expressed as a fusion protein (S81CP) in Escherichia coli and the recombinant protein was purified by immobilized metal binding affinity chromatography. Polyclonal antibody was raised against S81CP in rabbit to examine the occurrence of garlic potexvirus in Korean garlic plants by immunoblot analysis. Two virus protein bands of Mr 27,000 and 29,000 from garlic leaf extract of various cultivars reacted with the antibody. It was shown that Mr 27,000 band might not be a degradation product of Mr 29,000 band, suggesting that two types of potexvirus different in size of coat protein could exist in Korean garlic plants.

• Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.23-33
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• 2005

Agricultural sciences field in South Korea has many strong points such as numerous researchers, establishment of research infra-structure, excellence in research competitiveness and high technological level. However, there are also many weaknesses including insufficient leadership at related societies and institutes, deficiency of the next generation research group, and insufficiency in research productivity. There are many opportunities including increasing the importance of the biotechnological industry, activating international cooperation researches, and exploring the multitude of possible research areas to be studied. However, some threats still exist, such as pressure from the government of developed countries to open the agricultural market, the decrease of specialized farms, and intensification for researches to gratify economic and social demands. To encourage research activities in the agricultural sciences field in Korea, the following actions and systems are required: 1) formulation of a mid- and a long-term research master plan, 2) development of a database on the man power in related fields, 3) activation of top-down research topics, and associated increase of individual research grants, 4) development of special national programs for basic researches in agricultural sciences, 5) organization of a committee for policy and planning within the related societies, and 6) system development for the fair evaluation of the research results.

• Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.39 no.6
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• pp.430-436
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• 1996

The induction by xylose and repression by glucose of xylose isomerase(XI) were investigated to elucidate the regulation for production of XI in Escherichia coli. Regulation for expression of xyIA gene which codes XI is under control of xylR which is a regulatory gene for xylose catabolism. When xyIR gene was resided in chromosome, the inductions of XI by the addition of 0.4% xylose were increased to 1.9 and 1.7-fold in case of locating on multicopy(pEX202/DH77) and low copy Plasmid(pEX102/DH77), respectively, as compared with that of xylA gene which was resided in chromosome(JM109). xyIR gene product derived from xyIR gene on chromosome might react to xylA gene on the plasmid as same as xylA gene on chromosome. In JM109 and xylA transformant; pEX202/DH77 and pEX102/DH77, the inductions of XI were completely repressed by the addition of 0.2% glucose and these catabolite repressions were derepressed by the addition of 1 mM cAMP In comparison with the addition of 0.4% xylose only for the induction XI was inductively produced 1.7 to 2-fold with the addition of xylose plus 1 mM cAMP in DM minimal media. pEX13/TP2010, xylA transformant of the deficient mutant($xyl^-,\;cya^-$; TP2010) of XI and cAMP production, did not induce XI by the addition of xylose only but induced in case of simultaneous addition of xylose and cAMP. These results show that cAMP and xylose are the indispensable effectors for the induction and derepression of Xl in E. coli.