• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제17권9호
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• pp.4507-4510
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• 2016

Isothiocyanates are naturally occurring small molecules that are formed from glucosinolate precursors of cruciferous vegetables. Many isothiocyanates, both natural and synthetic, display anti-carcinogenic activity because they reduce activation of carcinogens and increase their detoxification. This minireview summarizes the current knowledge on isothiocyanates and focuses on their role as potential anti-cancer agents.

• 한국가축번식학회지
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• 제18권3호
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• pp.183-189
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• 1994

We examined early development in loach(Misgurnus mizolepis) embryos with parthenogenetic agents well-known in mammals. Female loach was superovulated with an intraperitoneal injection of 15 IU human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG) per gram body weight. After 13 h of hCG injection, the oocytes were obtained from the abdomen. The oocytes were activated with 10% ethanol in tap water or fish Ringer's solution for 5, 10 and 15 minutes(eTW5, 10, 15 and eFRS5, 10, 15), respectively. The activation rates were 29% and 10% in eFRS10 and eFRS15, 5% and 6% in eTW10 and eTW15 by judging the cleaved blastomeres. Whereas, no parthenogenetic embryo was produced by tap water or fish Ringer's solution alone. The activation rate with the fish Ringer's solution was higher than that of tap water. No embryonic development was observed by calcium ionophore, A23187, at concentrations of 10, 20, 40 and 100$\mu$M when treated for 1, 2.5 and 5 minutes, respectively. The activation agents did not cause early development as in mammalian eggs. Therefore, the results suggest that fresh water fish may have a different egg activation pathway from that of mammals.

• 한국응용약물학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국응용약물학회 2007년도 Proceedings of The Convention of The Korean Society of Applied Pharmacology
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• pp.15-22
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• 2007

Increasing evidence indicates that microglia-driven chronic inflammatory responses playa pathological role in the central nervous system. Activation of microglia is pivotal in the initiation and progression of neuroinflammation. Inhibition of the microglial activation may provide an effective therapeutic intervention that alleviates the progression of the neurodegenerative diseases. Anti-inflammatory agents may be a useful candidate for such a therapeutic approach. Continual investigation of the mechanisms underlying microglial activation and regulation of neuroinflammation by endogenous or exogenous factors would not only lead to the discovery of novel neuroprotective agents, but also help to understand complex pathophysiology of neurodegenerative diseases.

• Archives of Pharmacal Research
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• 제28권11호
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• pp.1257-1262
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• 2005

MMP-9 is a metalloproteinase capable of basement membrane degradation in vivo. Expression of MMP-9 can be found in normal conditions such as trophoblasts, osteoclasts, and leukocytes and their precursors. They also occur as well as in pathological conditions, such as the invasive growth of primary tumors, metastasis, angiogenesis, rheumatoid arthritis, and periodontal diseases. MMP-9 upregulation can be highly induced by a wide range of agents. These agents include growth factors, cytokines, cell-cell, and cell-ECM adhesion molecules, and agents altering cell shape. Here, we observed that TNF-$\alpha$ stimulated human monocytic cell line, HL-60 produced MMP-9 in a dose and time dependent manner. Real time PCR results indicated transcriptional upregulation of MMP-9 as early as 3 h post TNF-$\alpha$ stimulation. To investigate the signaling pathway underlined in TNF-$\alpha$ induced MMP-9 expression, three MAP kinase inhibitors were added to cells 1 h prior to TNF-$\alpha$ treatment. The ERK inhibitor completely abolished MMP-9 expression by TNF-$\alpha$. But neither p38 MAP kinase nor JNK inhibitor had an effect on TNF-$\alpha$ induced MMP-9 expression, suggesting that ERK activation is required for the MMP-9 induction by TNF-$\alpha$. Taken together, we found that TNF-$\alpha$ stimulation facilitates ERK activation, which results in the transcriptional upregulation of MMP-9 gene and subsequent MMP-9 production and secretion.

• 약학회지
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• 제51권1호
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• pp.35-43
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• 2007

To investigate the immunomodulatory roles of cyclic AMP (CAMP) on macrophage- and T lymphocyte-mediated immune responses, CAMP elevating agents were employed and carefully re-examined under the activation conditions of the cells. Various inhibitors tested dose-dependently blocked tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-${\alpha}$ production with IC$_{50}$ values ranged from 0.04 to 300 ${\mu}$M. Of the inhibitors, cAMP-elevating agents showed lower cytotoxicity assessed by lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) release, suggesting less toxic and more selective. In particular co-treatment of dbcAMP with a protein kinase C inhibitor staurosporine displayed the synergistic inhibition of TNF-${\alpha}$ production. The modulatory effect of dbcAMP on TNF-${\alpha}$ and nitric oxide (NO) was significantly affected by treatment time of dbcAMP. Thus, post-treatment of dbcAMP (three hours before LPS) abrogated dbcAMP's inhibitory activity and rather enhanced TNF-${\alpha}$ level up to 60%. In contrast, additional NO production was shown at the co-treatment of dbcAMP with LPS. Unlike simultaneous treatment of phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA) and interferon (IFN)-${\gamma}$co-treatment, the combination of dbcAMP with other NO-inducing stimuli did not show drastic overproduction of NO. cAMP elevating agents also diminished splenocyte proliferation stimulated by concanavalin (Con) A, phytohemaglutinin A (PHA) and lipopolysaccharide (LPS). In addition, dbcAMP but not rolipram strongly suppressed CD8$^+$ T cells (CTLL-2). Finally, cAMP elevating agents were differentially involved in regulating CD98-mediated cell-cell adhesion. Thus, dbcAMP and rolipram significantly enhanced the cell-cell adhesion, whereas forskolin blocked. Therefore, our results suggest that CAMP elevating agents participate in various immune responses mediated by macrophages and T cells with a different fashion depending on cellular environments and activation signals.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• 제16권3호
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• pp.5-16
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• 1988

This experiment was executed to investigate the effect of activation of veneer surface by oxidizing agents, hydrogen peroxide and nitric acid, on bonding characteristics of Malas(Homalium foetidum Benth) plywood, in which the effects of these oxidizing agents amount, pretreatment time, and pressing time and temperatue on shear strength of the plywood were examined and discussed. In this research the activation of veneer surface by oxidants was effective in raising shear strength but the difference in shear strength was not observed between hydrogen peroxide and nitric acid treatment. Hydrogen peroxide treatment, however, seemed to be more profitable to industrial application because of its lower concentration and easier handling than nitric acid. The bonding method by lignin-phenol adhesive through surface activation revealed inferior shear strength to phenol- and urea-formaldehyde adhesive but superior water resistance to urea-formaldehyde adhesive and this bonding method, in addition, have the advantage of lower cost compared with phenol-formaldehyde adhesive, Therefore, this bonding method by lignin-phenol adhesive through surface activation seemed to economical in manufacturing of water-resistant wood panel materials in future.

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
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• 제16권5호
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• pp.1074-1082
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• 2020

Recently, research has been actively conducted to create artificial intelligence agents that learn games through reinforcement learning. There are several factors that determine performance when the agent learns a game, but using any of the activation functions is also an important factor. This paper compares and evaluates which activation function gets the best results if the agent learns the game through reinforcement learning in the 2D racing game environment. We built the agent using a reinforcement learning algorithm and a neural network. We evaluated the activation functions in the network by switching them together. We measured the reward, the output of the advantage function, and the output of the loss function while training and testing. As a result of performance evaluation, we found out the best activation function for the agent to learn the game. The difference between the best and the worst was 35.4%.

• 한국환경성돌연변이발암원학회지
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• 제21권1호
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• pp.23-29
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• 2001

The NBP assay was conducted to determine the photomutagenic or photocarcinogenic potential of alkylating agents. Using a 4-NBP in vitro technique, whereby photochemical treatment on CAS (Chemical Activation System) was performed to investigate the enhancement effect, 20 compounds were shown to undergo alkylating mechanisms with 4-NBP. Chemically meaningful results were obtained with different sets of 20 compounds for the alkylating activities due to the UV irradiation, demonstrating that all of the testing compounds showed increasing photoalkylating effects either in the presence or absence of CAS in comparison with previously reported data, except furoic acid and fumaric acid that showed decreasing effect in the presence of a CAS. Caffeine did not show a meaningful result either. However, these findings demonstrate the effects of potential photoalkylating activity in chemical activation system (CAS) and suggest a potential risk-ranking system for the in vivo assays.

• Natural Product Sciences
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• 제26권2호
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• pp.109-117
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• 2020

The canonical Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathways play an important role in the embryonic development, cell proliferation, differentiation, and adhesion. Therefore, the abnormal activation and repression have been associated with uncontrolled homeostasis in human tissues. In particular, the activation of Wnt signaling is highly correlated with a diverse of diseases including cancer. On this regard, a strategy for targeting Wnt/β-catenin signaling has been employed in the discovery and development of antitumor agents. Herein, the evolution of Wnt signaling and the Wnt inhibitors derived from natural products were briefly summarized in the drug discovery of anticancer agents.

• Molecules and Cells
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• 제46권6호
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• pp.387-398
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• 2023

Microtubule acetylation has been proposed as a marker of highly heterogeneous and aggressive triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). The novel microtubule acetylation inhibitors GM-90257 and GM-90631 (GM compounds) cause TNBC cancer cell death but the underlying mechanisms are currently unknown. In this study, we demonstrated that GM compounds function as anti-TNBC agents through activation of the JNK/AP-1 pathway. RNA-seq and biochemical analyses of GM compound-treated cells revealed that c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) and members of its downstream signaling pathway are potential targets for GM compounds. Mechanistically, JNK activation by GM compounds induced an increase in c-Jun phosphorylation and c-Fos protein levels, thereby activating the activator protein-1 (AP-1) transcription factor. Notably, direct suppression of JNK with a pharmacological inhibitor alleviated Bcl2 reduction and cell death caused by GM compounds. TNBC cell death and mitotic arrest were induced by GM compounds through AP-1 activation in vitro. These results were reproduced in vivo, validating the significance of microtubule acetylation/JNK/AP-1 axis activation in the anti-cancer activity of GM compounds. Moreover, GM compounds significantly attenuated tumor growth, metastasis, and cancer-related death in mice, demonstrating strong potential as therapeutic agents for TNBC.