• Journal of Life Science
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.145-152
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• 2024

Seaweeds represent a widely harnessed marine resource that are valued for their abundant supply of essential nutrients, particularly proteins and amino acids. In Korea, where over 500 species of seaweed thrive and more than 50 are utilized for culinary purposes, seaweed has become a staple in regular diets. In this study, we focused on five of the most commonly consumed seaweed species in Korea: Capsosiphon fulvescens, Hizikia fusiforme, Porphyra yezoensis, Saccharina japonica, and Undaria pinnatifida. We closely examined the amino acid compositions of these five species. High-performance liquid chromatography showed that aspartic acid, glutamic acid, alanine, and leucine were the most abundant amino acids in the seaweeds. Principal component analysis revealed that the five seaweed species could be classified into three clusters according to their amino acid composition, partially corroborating findings from the phylogenetic analysis. Among various amino acids, glutamic acid, aspartic acid, and alanine were the primary amino acids driving differentiation. Notably, U. pinnatifida and C. fulvescens, which demonstrated close phylogenetic proximity, exhibited remarkably similar amino acid profiles. Conversely, although P. yezoensis and S. japonica shared a phylogenetic relationship, they displayed distinctly different amino acid compositions. H. fusiforme emerged as a distinct group in both analyses.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.179-192
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• 2023

In this study, changes in the microbial ecosystem of the Yeongheungdo island coastal waters were investigated for five years to collect basic data. To evaluate the influence of distance from the coast on the microbial ecosystem, four sites, coastal Site (S1) and 0.75, 1.5, and 3 km away from the coast, were set up and the changes in physicochemical and biological factors were monitored. The results showed seasonal changes in water temperature, dissolved oxygen, salinity, and pH but with no significant differences between sites. For nutrients, the concentration of dissolved inorganic nitrogen increased from 6.4 μM in April-June to 16.4 μM in July-November, while that of phosphorus and silicon phosphate increased from 0.4 μM and 2.5 μM in April-June to 1.1 μM and 12.0 μM in July-November, respectively. Notably, phosphorus phosphate concentrations were lower in 2014-2015 (up to 0.2 μM) compared to 2016-2018 (up to 2.2 μM), indicating phosphorus limitation during this period. However, there were no differences in nutrients with distance from the coast, indicating that there was no effect of distance on nutrients. Phytoplankton (average 511 cells mL^-1) showed relatively high biomass (up to 3,370 cells mL^-1) in 2014-2015 when phosphorus phosphate was limited. Notably, at that time, the concentration of dissolved organic carbon was not high, with concentrations ranging from 1.1-2.3 mg L^-1. However, no significant differences in biological factors were observed between the sites. Although this study revealed that there was no disturbance of the ecosystem, further research and more basic data on the microecosystem are necessary to understand the ecosystem of the Incheon.

• Proceedings of the Korea Technology Innovation Society Conference
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• 1999.11c
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• pp.219-236
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• 1999

This study is to acquire a thorough understanding of the S&T level of Korea to serve as an important basis for the government policy-making, and to make basic information available to effectively promote the National R&D Program by survey of the overall S&T level in Korea S&T level survey is a comparison to the highest levels in the world to the third 3digit of the technology tree table. And, survey of technological gaps by year, during which Korea is able to reach the current level of the advanced countries. The findings of the surveys should be applied to strategic technology Planning for solving or narrowing the technology gap, e the major criteria for resources allocation in National R&D programs. And, the findings of the surveys should be the fundamental information used to establish strategic S&T policy in government.

• Korean Journal of Plant Resources
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.107-121
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• 2023

This study analyzed the polyphenol, flavonoid contents, antioxidant activity, anti-aging activity and phenol component contents of Saccharina japonica (SJ), Costaria costata (CC) extracts with hot water, 95% methanol, 95% prethanol for investigating possible utilization of SJ and CC extracts. The result revealed that the SJ and CC methanol extracts showed the highest polyphenol and flavonoid contents, 4.63 mg TAN/g, and 4.19 mg QUE/g respectively. Also, the SJ and CC methanol extracts showed higher antioxidant activity than prethanol and hot water extracts, whereas the ABTS radical scavenging activities were the highest in prethanol extracts (IC₅₀ = 15.4, 10.3 ㎍/µL). In anti-aging activity for evaluating the anti-wrinkle activity and skin whitening activity, the CC methanol extracts had high collagenase inhibitory activity (88.3%), and the SJ prethanol extracts showed higher elastase inhibitory activity (19.0%) compared to other extracts. Then the tyrosinase inhibitory activity was significantly higher in the SJ and CC methanol extracts (41.8, 30.3%, respectively), whereas prethanol extracts were the lowest. To identify the phenol component contents of SJ and CC extracts, 4-hydroxybenzoic acid, naringenin, naringin and nicotinic acid were measured using LC-MS/MS. As a result, the phenol contents were the highest in SJ methanol extract (4-hydroxybenzoic acid), SJ and CC prethanol extract (naringin and naringenin) and CC prethanol extract (nicotinic acid). Lastly, the antioxidant activity of SJ and CC showed high correlations with polyphenol and flavonoid contents (R = -0.946~0.883). These results suggest that prethanol or methanol extracts of SJ and CC have higher antioxidant activities, anti-aging activity and the potential to be used as material for health functional food and cosmetics.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.984-988
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• 2006

Lipopolysaccharide(LPS) was posttreated after the 14 day-pretreatment of Ulva lactuca fractions(ULF), and their correlativity to enzymatic activity alteration was investigated in the liver of rats. ULF was intraperitoneally administered into rats at dose of $1m{\ell}/kg$ of 100 mg/kg concentration for 14 days. On the day 15, $1m{\ell}/kg$ of LPS was injected. The corelativity was examined by measuring the changed values of superoxide dismutase(SOD) in mitochondrial fraction and catalase(CAT), glutathione peroxidase(GPx) in liver homogenate. The results showed that LPS treatment decreased the high values of SOD, CAT, GPx to the low values, but ULF pretreatment increased the low values of SOD, CAT, GPx to the high values. It was suggested that ULF, LPS and antioxidative enzymes like SOD, CAT, GPx had the corelativity of the high-low-high pattern and that the ULF pretreatment played the proper preventive role in the protection against the LPS treatment-induced enzymatic inactivity in the water fraction.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.112-120
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• 2007

This paper reviews the use of parasites as 'biological tags' for studying stock analysis of salmonid fishes. Numerous definitions of stock concepts exist, but most of them essentially define a group of fish as having similar biological characteristics and being self-reproducing as stocks. It is important to manage fish stocks for human consumption and sustainable production and especially for salmonid fishes. Because these fry are considered as each country's property, it is necessary to identify and discriminate each fish stock in the open sea. Methods of separating fish stocks are very diverse. Artificial tags, parasites, otoliths scales and genetic characters have been used for stock analysis and each method has advantages and disadvantages. Of these parasites can be good biological tags because they are applied by nature at no cost. Parasites can be infected with susceptible host fishes when they enter into certain areas. Then if they move to the outside and are caught researchers can infer that the fish had been in the endemic area for a period of time during their life. Hence the host fish can be considered as naturally 'tagged' by parasites. However, if they do not pass the parasites-endemic. area, they will harbour no parasites. Therefore, researchers can discriminate each fish stocks and trace their migration routes with these biological tags. In this paper, several examples on the use of parasites as biological tags for studying salmonids, as well as other species, are listed. The advantages and limitations of parasites as biological tags are also discussed. Chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta), the main salmonid species migrating to Korea, is distributed all around the North Pacific. Korean chum salmon are generally thought to move to the Sea of Okhotsk, the western North Pacific and the Bering Sea. However, there is no clear information on the distribution and migration pathways of Korean chum salmon, and no markers exist for separating them from others yet. Recent Korean chum salmon stock analysis including parasites information are mentioned.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.373-378
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• 2019

In the marine area, the salt concentration in the soil increases, and the inland heavy metal pollution increases the damage of plants. In the inland industrial development area, researches on the genetic resources of plants together with the heavy metal accumulation of Co, Ni, Zn, and so on are required. Both of these problems have caused scientists to work hard to find plants that are likely to cause stress in plant roots. In this study, seeds of Arabis stelleri var. japonica collected near the shore were used for germination. The growth and development and tolerance of both Arabis and Arabidopsis seeds were investigated under laboratory culture conditions. As a result, Arabis showed resistance about 3 times in 250 mM nickle and cobalt, and more than 4 times in 1 mM zinc when compared to Arabidopsis. The tolerance of Arabis to Na salts increased by 20% or more at 50 mM concentration and Arabis was resistant to heavy metals and salt concentration. The accumulation of Na ions in the body was measured as a preparation for studying the intracellular mechanism. As a result, it showed a further decrease in resistance to ground water roots. It is considered that the activity of the exporting gene is important rather than the mechanism of accumulation.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.582-590
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• 2018

Although there are many studies of the effect of climate change on the breeding phenology and community diversity of amphibians, the studies of variations in reproductive population size of individual species according to climate change are still lacking. We examined the effect of climate change on the reproductive population size of Rana huanrenensis and Hynobius leechii, which bred in mountain valleys, by surveying the reproductive population of the two species between 2005 and 2012 and analyzing the correlation between the variation of the outdoor population and the surrounding climate change factors, obtained from a meteorological observatory located at 5.6 km from the study site. The size of the reproductive population of the two species commonly fluctuated with aan pproximately 3.5-year cycle. That of H. leechii, in particular, decreased significantly over eight years. The air temperature tended to more closely relate with the reproductive population size of R. huanrenensis as was the case of the precipitation with that of H. leechii. The yearly mean highest temperature and spring mean temperature variation consistently decreased over the eight years, and the latter was related with the significantly decreased size of H. leechii reproductive population. These results showed that recent climate change directly could affect the reproductive population size of amphibians, particularly H. leechii, which breeds in mountain valleys.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.555-562
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• 2016

In this study, we investigated the effects of Undaria pinnatifida (UP), Petalonia binghamiae (PB) and Punctaria latifolia (PL) extracts on the inhibition of proliferation and apoptosis in human gastric and breast cancer cells. AGS, MDA-MB-231 and SK-BR-3 cells were treated with 0, 50, 100, and 200 μg/ml concentrations of the extracts to determine their anti-proliferative effects, using the MTT assay. The UP, PB and PL extracts inhibited proliferation of AGS, MDA-MB-231 and SK-BR-3 cells in a dose-dependent manner, and the PL extract was found to be the most effective. DAPI staining was also performed to determine changes in the cell nucleus. Further, the AGS, MDA-MB-231 and SK-BR-3 cells were treated with 0, 50, 100, and 200 μg/ml of only the PL extract. DAPI staining showed increased chromatin condensation, which is indicative of apoptosis, in the 200 μg/ml group. The expression of the Bax, Bcl-2, and PARP proteins in AGS, MDA-MB-231 and SK-BR-3 cells treated with the PL extract was also determined by western blot analysis. The expression of Bax (a pro-apoptotic protein) and cleaved-PARP was increased, whereas the expression of Bcl-2 (an anti-apoptotic protein) was decreased compared with the control. These findings indicate that the PL extract may have potential as an alternative anticancer drug and nutraceutical.