• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.73-80
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• 2007

Fruitful findings have been produced from five out of sixty cells which were obtained from each 63 individual Aplisia caught at the Jeju coast. Spiking patterns of three out of five cells, such as relaxation oscillator, bursting within a short time of the inter-burst interval, chaotic bursting, period doubling sequences, bursting with long trains of action potentials separated by short silent periods, regular repeated beating or elliptic bursting, and silent states had been changed in order as the temperature was lowered to $10^{\circ}C\;from\;32^{\circ}C$. In the intervals of every about 40 minutes repeated ups and downs of temperature produced similar firing patterns at the allowable temperature ranges. The other two cells showed difference from these. The amplitudes of the action potentials of the two cells will not be highly decreased in 24 hours. Average spike frequencies, the inter-burst interval, peak to peak spike amplitude of action potentials, minimum potential values are compared and analyzed by using the computer programme. The spike frequencies according to temperature show the distribution of bell type, with maximal spike frequencies at intermediate temperatures and minimal ones at either end. The most common pattern consist of high spike frequency during failing and low one during rising temperatures.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.143-150
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• 2012

To determine the spatial distribution of marine invertebrate communities in intertidal rocky shore on Dokdo, 10 times investigation was carried out at 7 stations during the year of 2009~2011. The marine invertebrate community can be divided into three different groups based on cluster analysis of Bray-Curtis similarity. As a first group, the pebble beach community, Omphalius rusticus, Monodonta perplexa, and Chlorostoma lischkei which were movable gastropod with dominant occurrence. Secondly, the still rocky shore community, O. rusticus, Serpulorbis imbricatus and Aplysia kurodai occurred dominantly. Finally, the wave-exposed rocky shore community which dominantly occurred by two sessile arthropods, Barnacles, Chthamalus challengeri and Pollicipes mitella. The three groups were likely to be determined by texture of substrate and hydrodynamic conditions of rocky shore in Dokdo. The results indicated that diversity of marine intertidal invertebrate community around Dok do was mainly affected by habitat characteristics and the surrounding physical properties.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.499-507
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• 2012

Previous work has characterized myomodulin A (MMA, PMSMLRLamide) and myomodulin E (MME, GLQMLRLamide) purified from the central nervous systems of the sea hare, $Aplysia$ $Kurodai$, using the anterior byssus retractor muscle (ABRM) of the mussel, $Mytilus$ $edulis$. The amino acid sequences of MMA and MME were the same as those of the myomodulin family peptide found in other mollusks. In this study, we synthesized MME, its derivatives, and other neuropeptides to investigate the relationship between the structure and biological activity of MME. The primary structures of MME's derivatives, Des[$Gly^1$]-MME, Des[$Gly^1,Leu^2$]-MME, and Des[$Gly^1,Leu^2,Gln^3$]-MME, were LQMLRLamide, QMLRLamide, and MLRLamide, respectively. MMA and synthetic peptides were tested on ABRM in $M.$ $edulis$ as well as muscle preparations in $Achatina$ $fulica$. MME displayed an inhibitory effect on phasic contraction of the ABRM at $1{\times}10^{-9}$ M or higher. MME also had a relaxing effect on the catch-tension of AMRM at $1{\times}10^{-8}$ M. Both MMA and its analogs stimulated a contractile response on the crop and relaxed the catch-relaxing response on the penial retractor muscle of $A.$ $fulica$. These results suggest that MME and its analogs have modulatory effects on various muscles of mollusks. This study has also laid the groundwork for future neural and circuit modulation studies during animal behavioral changes.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.125-132
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• 2007

We estimated the distribution of predator-prey interaction strengths for 12 species of herbivores (including amphipods, isopods, gastropods, and sea urchins) and made a regression model that may be applicable to other species. Laboratory experiments were used to determine per capita grazing rate (PCGR; g seaweeds/individual/day). Relationship between the biomass of individual grazers and fourth-root transformed PCGR was fitted to power curve ($y=0.2310x^{0.3290}$, r=0.8864). This finding supported that the grazing efficiency was not even as individual grazers increase in size (biomass). Therefore, the biomass-normalized PCGR was estimated and revealed that smaller size herbivores were more effective grazers. Grazing impact considering density of each taxon was calculated. The sea hare Aplysia kurodai had greatest grazing impact on the seaweed bed and the sea urchin Strongylocentrotus nudus and S. intermedius were ranked in descending order of the impact. The amount of seaweed grazed by the amphipod Elasmopus sp. (>4,000 $ind./m^2$) and Jassa falcata (>2,000 $ind./m^2$) were 3.435 and $1.697mg/m^2/day$ respectively. The combined grazing amount of herbivores was $5,045mg/m^2/day$ in the seaweed bed. Although sea hare and sea urchin had strong impacts on seaweeds, the effects of dense, smaller species could not be seen as negligible. Surprisingly, the calculated grazing potential of sea urchins with a mean density of 3 $ind./m^2$ exceeded the mean production of seaweed cultured in domestic coastal waters in Korea (ca., 5 ton/ha). Small crustaceans were also expected to consume up to 16% of the seaweed production if their densities were rising under weak predation conditions. Considering that the population density of herbivores are strongly controlled by fish, human interference like overfishing may have strong negative effects on persistence of seaweeds communities.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.216-224
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• 1983

This work was undertaken to obtain some characteristics of proteolytic enzyme of marine gastropods such as sea hare, Aplysia kurodai, top shell, Turbo cornutus, and abalone, Haliotis discus hannai. An influence of pH, temperature and some chemicals on proteolytic activity of the crude enzyme extracted from digestive tract of the samples was taken into account and the stability of the enzyme during the storage at low temperature was also discussed. In comparison of the activities of the crude enzyme from the samples to the optimum conditions, it was characterized that abalone has twice or the more times higher activities than the other two species of the gastropoda in the acid and weak acid region, while, in the alkaline region, sea hare has six or the more times higher acitivities than the other two species. The proteolytic activity was facilitated by $Mn^{2+}$, some reducing agents, EDTA and DTT, and inhibited by $Hg^{2+}$ and SDS, but the other chemicals were not significantly affected to the activity. The low temperature storage of the enzymes of sea hare and top shell at $0^{\circ}C\;or\;-20^{\circ}C$ was not affected to the enzymic activity under the optimum pH condition except in the alkaline region. On the other hand, the low temperature storage was brought about no significant effect on the activity of the enzymes extracted from abalone under the optimum condition of the weak acid region, but apparently influenced to the activity under the optimum condition of the acid and alkaline region.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.550-556
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• 1985

In order to evaluate the marine mollusc muscle as foodstuff not only from the biochemical aspect but also from the view point of food science, we have analyzed the protein and amino acid compositions of the echiurid (Urechis unicinctus) and sea hare (Aplysia kurodai) muscle. The protein quality of the muscles was also investigated using in vitro methods based on in vitro digestibility, predicted digestibility, computed PER (C-PER) and discriminant computed PER(DC-PER). The remarkable feature of the protein compositions of the both muscles was that water soluble protein occupied a large amount of the muscle protein with fairly lower contents of the salt soluble protein. From the analysis of SDS-PAG electrophoresis, the sarcoplasmic proteins in the echiurid and the sea hare muscles were composed of 15 and 10 subunits, respectively. The free amino acid compositions of the total amino acids in the echiurid and sea hare muscle were characterized with $75\%$ of glycine and alanine, and with $78\%$ of taurine, respectively. The amino acid anaylsis of both muscle proteins showed that the echiurid muscle was rich in glycine, aspartic acid, glutamic acid, arginine and lysine, but was poor in cysteine, while the sea hare muscle was rich in glycine, glutamic acid, aspartic acid and arginine, but was negligible in cysteine and tryptophan. In the total amino acid profiles of the freeze dried muscles in echiurid and sea hare, there was not found a significant difference compared to the amino acid compositions of the muscle proteins. Predicting the protein quality of the echiurid and sea hare muscles using the in vitro method, it was apparently low compared to the muscle protein of fishes.