• Journal of Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.230-234
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• 2000

A new method to assay the capsaicinoid synthetase (CS) activity was developed by utilizing NADHcoupled enzyme systems involving pyruvate kinase and lactate dehydrogenase. CS activities in Capsicum placenta, depending upon the kinetics of the NADH oxidation, revealed almost the same profile as compared with those shown using an HPLC-based method. When the substrates, 8-methyl nonanoic acid and vanillylamine, for the CS enzyme were employed separately or simultaneously, it appeared that the two-step reaction, acyl-CoA formation and condensation with vanillyla~ne, of the CS enzyme was a coupled reaction. Thus, this assay method of the CS enzyme can be considered as an alternative to the HPLC-based method, since it has the advantages of rapidity and simplicity as well as reliability when compared with the existing method.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.29 no.7
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• pp.1117-1123
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• 2019

Control of pine wilt disease, which is caused by pine wilt nematode Bursaphelenchus xylophilus, is heavily dependent on the use of chemicals such as abamectin. Although such chemicals are highly effective, demands for alternatives that are derived preferentially from natural sources, are increasing out of environmental concerns. One of the challenges to discovery of alternative control agents is lack of fast and efficient screening method that can be used in a high-throughput manner. Here we described the development of colorimetric assay for the rapid and accurate screening of candidate nematicidal compounds/biologics targeting B. xylophilus. Contrary to the conventional method, which relies on laborious visual inspection and counting of nematode population under microscope, our method utilizes a redox dye that changes its color in response to metabolic activity of nematode population in a given sample. In this work, we optimized parameters of our colorimetric assay including number of nematodes and amount of redox dye, and tested applicability of our assay for screening of chemicals and biologics. We demonstrated that our colorimetric assay can be applied to rapid and accurate quantification of nematode viability/mortality in a nematode population treated with candidate chemicals/biologics. Application of our method would facilitate high-throughput endeavors aiming at finding environment-friendly control agents for deadly disease of pine trees.

• Toxicological Research
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.43-48
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• 2017

With ultraviolet and visible light exposure, some pharmaceutical substances applied systemically or topically may cause phototoxic skin irritation. The major factor in phototoxicity is the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) such as singlet oxygen and superoxide anion that cause oxidative damage to DNA, lipids and proteins. Thus, measuring the generation of ROS can predict the phototoxic potential of a given substance indirectly. For this reason, a standard ROS assay (ROS assay) was developed and validated and provides an alternative method for phototoxicity evaluation. However, negative substances are over-predicted by the assay. Except for ultraviolet A (UVA), other UV ranges are not a major factor in causing phototoxicity and may lead to incorrect labeling of some non-phototoxic substances as being phototoxic in the ROS assay when using a solar simulator. A UVA stimulator is also widely used to evaluate phototoxicity in various test substances. Consequently, we identified the applicability of a UVA simulator to the ROS assay for photoreactivity. In this study, we tested 60 pharmaceutical substances including 50 phototoxins and 10 non-phototoxins to predict their phototoxic potential via the ROS assay with a UVA simulator. Following the ROS protocol, all test substances were dissolved in dimethyl sulfoxide or sodium phosphate buffer. The final concentration of the test solutions in the reaction mixture was 20 to $200{\mu}M$. The exposure was with $2.0{\sim}2.2mW/cm^2$ irradiance and optimization for a relevant dose of UVA was performed. The generation of ROS was compared before and after UVA exposure and was measured by a microplate spectrophotometer. Sensitivity and specificity values were 85.7% and 100.0% respectively, and the accuracy was 88.1%. From this analysis, the ROS assay with a UVA simulator is suitable for testing the photoreactivity and estimating the phototoxic potential of various test pharmaceutical substances.

• Analytical Science and Technology
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.161-166
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• 2014

Currently oxidation-reduction titration method for the assay method using the hazardous reagent, carbon tetrachloride, for cefroxadine capsules has been used in Korean Pharmaceutical Codex. We developed and validated an alternative HPLC assay method by substituting the use of the hazardous reagent, carbon tetrachloride, to the use of less toxic ones like acetonitrile. The linearity of the calibration curves in the desired concentration range was good ($r^2$ > 0.999). Relative standard deviations of intra-day precision were ranged between 0.30% and 0.69% and inter-day precision were ranged between 0.47% and 0.82%. Accuracy was obtained with recoveries in range of 100.20% and 100.56%. Developed method was applied to the determination of cefroxadine in commercial cefroxadine capsule and could be expected to become valuable tools for revising the Korean Pharmaceutical Codex.

• Toxicological Research
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.175-181
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• 2002

Allergic contact dermatitis (skin sensitization) may be caused by a wide variety of chemicals. A murine local lymph node assay (LLNA) has been developed as an alternative to guinea pig models for assessing the contact sensitization potential of chemical. This study was carried out to evaluate the skin sensitization potential for chemicals in Balb/c mice by LLNA. Contact allergen, dinitrochlorobenzene (DNCB), respiratory allergen, toluene diisocyanate (TDI) and a weak allergen, $\alpha$-hexlycinnamaldehyde (HCA) were wed as positive chemicals and irritant, sodium lauryl sulfate(SLS) also wed as a reference chemical in this study. The weights of lymph node in the mice treated with DNCB, TDI, and HCA were increased compared to vehicle control. There was a significant increase in lymph node weight of mice treated with high concentration of SLS compared to vehicle control. The stimulation index (SI) of Lymph node cell in the mice treated with DNCB, TDI, and HCA revealed over three-fold increase compared to vehicle control by $3^H$-thymidine uptake. All allergens correctly identified in this LLNA study wing Balb/c mice. These results suggest that LLNA wing Balb/c mice could be a useful method for screening the allergenic potential of chemicals. The expression of IL-2 mRNA was slightly increased in draining auricular lymph node cell of the mice treated with TDI and HCA by RT-PCR. However the IL-2 levels in DNCB and SLS of treated animals were not significantly changed.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.22 no.11
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• pp.1575-1579
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• 2012

Paenibacillus polymyxa is known to be a plant-growth-promoting rhizobacterium. The present study describes a quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) assay for the specific detection and quantitation of P. polymyxa using a primer pair based on the sequence of a membrane-fusion protein for the amplification of a 268 bp DNA fragment. This study reports that the qPCR-based method is applicable for the rapid and sensitive detection of P. polymyxa and can be used as an alternative method for agricultural soil monitoring.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Toxicology Conference
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.194-194
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• 2001

Preclinical test methods for allergenic potential chemicals has been widely used to assess human risks and has been developed. Recently, the murine local lymph node assay (LLNA) has been proposed as a prospective method to identify contact allergens and to replace conventional the guinea pig maximization test (GPMT). The objective of this study was to establish LLNA and to evaluate allergenicity of chemicals by LLNA. (omitted)

• Journal of Marine Life Science
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.9-21
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• 2024

Paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) including Saxitoxin (STX) is caused by harmful algae, and poisoning occurs when the contaminated seafood is consumed. The mouse bioassay (MBA), a standard test method for detecting PSP, is being sanctioned in many countries due to its low detection limit and the animal concerns. An alternative to the MBA is the Neuro-2a cell-based assay. This study aimed to establish various test conditions for Neuro-2a assay, including cell density, culture conditions, and STX treatment conditions, to suit the domestic laboratory environment. As a result, the initial cell density was set to 40,000 cells/well and the incubation time to 24 hours. Additionally, the concentration of Ouabain and Veratridine (O/V) was set to 500/50 μM, at which most cells died. In this study, we identified eight concentrations of STX, ranging from 368 to 47,056 fg/μl, which produced an S-shaped dose-response curve when treated with O/V. Through inter-laboratory variability comparison of the Neuro-2a assay, we established five Quality Control Criteria to verify the appropriateness of the experiments and six Data Criteria (Top and Bottom OD, EC₅₀, EC₂₀, Hill slop, and R² of graph) to determine the reliability of the experimental data. The Neuro-2a assay conducted under the established conditions showed an EC₅₀ value of approximately 1,800~3,500 fg/μl. The intra- & inter-lab variability comparison results showed that the coefficients of variation (CVs) for the Quality Control and Data values ranged from 1.98% to 29.15%, confirming the reproducibility of the experiments. This study presented Quality Control Criteria and Data Criteria to assess the appropriateness of the experiments and confirmed the excellent repeatability and reproducibility of the Neuro-2a assay. To apply the Neuro-2a assay as an alternative method for detecting PSP in domestic seafood, it is essential to establish a toxin extraction method from seafood and toxin quantification methods, and perform correlation analysis with MBA and instrumental analysis methods.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.588-595
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• 2016

IFN-γ release assays (IGRAs) have been developed as viable alternative diagnostic tools for detecting latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI). A customized homogeneous sandwich luminescent oxygen channeling immunoassay (LOCI) was used to quantify IFN-γ levels in IGRAs. Samples were collected from healthy volunteers (n = 40) who were T-Spot-negative and T-Spot-positive patients (n = 32) at rest. Then the amount of IFN-γ in the supernatant of IGRAs was measured by LOCI. The results demonstrated a low background, and high sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and reproducibility, and a short assay time (only 30 min) with LOCI for IFN-γ. The recovery range was 81.63-102.06%, the coefficients of variation were below 5%, and the limit of detection was 19.0 mIU/ml. Excellent agreement between LOCI IFN-γ and the T-SPOT.TB test was obtained (97.2% agreement, κ = 0.94). The LOCI IFN-γ concentrations were significantly higher in T-Spot-positive patients than in the healthy group (p < 0.001). Moreover, as observed for the comparative LOCI IFN-γ assay, IFN-γ concentrations were related to the numbers of T-SPOT.TB spots. We have established an in vitro blood test for LTBI diagnosis, defined as LOCI IFN-γ. A high level of agreement between the LOCI IFN-γ method and T-SPOT.TB assay was observed in clinical studies that showed the LOCI IFN-γ method could determine LTBI. This study shows acceptable performance characteristics of the LOCI IFN-γ assay to diagnose LTBI.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.242-244
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• 1995

In vitro cell culture system has been proposed as a promising alternative model to in vivo skin irritation test. These studies were performed to screen the cytotoxicity effects of surfactants using normal human skin fibroblasts. Cell membrane integrity assessed by the leakage of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and mitochondrial integrity by MTT [3-(4, 5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2, 5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromides reduction test were affected in a dose dependent manner. The irritation potential of surfactants to human skin patch test, and the changes of capillary permeability by rabbit intradermal safety test were assessed as in vivo methods. Our results suggest that LDH leakage assay and MTT reduction test using cultured human fibroblasts could be predictive for the irritancy of various surfactants in human, and LDH assay is superior correlated with in vivo test (r=0.886) to MTT test with in vivotest (r=0.757).