• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.47 no.5
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• pp.245-252
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• 2014

Arsenic is a unique element with distinct physical characteristics and toxicity whose importance in public health is well recognized. The toxicity of arsenic varies across its different forms. While the carcinogenicity of arsenic has been confirmed, the mechanisms behind the diseases occurring after acute or chronic exposure to arsenic are not well understood. Inorganic arsenic has been confirmed as a human carcinogen that can induce skin, lung, and bladder cancer. There are also reports of its significant association to liver, prostate, and bladder cancer. Recent studies have also suggested a relationship with diabetes, neurological effects, cardiac disorders, and reproductive organs, but further studies are required to confirm these associations. The majority of research to date has examined cancer incidence after a high exposure to high concentrations of arsenic. However, numerous studies have reported various health effects caused by chronic exposure to low concentrations of arsenic. An assessment of the health effects to arsenic exposure has never been performed in the South Korean population; thus, objective estimates of exposure levels are needed. Data should be collected on the biological exposure level for the total arsenic concentration, and individual arsenic concentration by species. In South Korea, we believe that biological exposure assessment should be the first step, followed by regular health effect assessments.

• Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.293-296
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• 1996

The present study was carried out to investigate the effect of Ni on germination, cell elongation, ${\alpha}-amylase$ activity, contents of chlorophyll and protein in radish were determined in the water culture. As the concentration of Ni was increased in the water culture, germination of radish was 55% by Ni 10 mg/kg and 30% by Ni 20 mg/kg. The ratio of cell elongation injury was 50%, by two days after Ni 20 mg/kg treatment. The injury ratio of ${\alpha}-amylase$ activity was 45% in the same condition and as the time goes on, inhibition of ${\alpha}-amylase$ activity were slightly decreased. Contents of chlorophyll a and b were decreased two days after treatment and chlorophyll a was more inhibited than chlorophyll b. Also changes of the protein contents was slightly decreased. Activity of ${\alpha}-amylase$ was decreased at germination stage, contents of chlorophyll a and b were decreased at growing stage.

• Journal of Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.169-174
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• 1999

Arabidopsis AHL gene contains 4 exons encoding a putative protein highly homologous to the yeast salt-sensitive enzyme HAL2, a 3'(2'),5'-bisphosphate nucleotidase involving in reductive sulfate assimilation. AHL cDNA complemented yeast met22 (hal2) mutant. AHL fusion protein expressed in E. coli exhibited $Mg^{2+}$-dependent, 3'-phosphoadenosine 5'-phosphate (PAP)-specific phosphatase activity. $Li^+,\;Na^+,\;K^+$ and $Ca^{2+}$ ions inhibit the enzyme activity by competing with $Mg^{2+}$ for the active site of the enzyme. The enzyme activity was also sensitive to ${\mu}M$ concentrations of toxic heavy metal ions such as $Cd^{2+},\;Cu^{2+}$ and $Zn^{2+}$, but was not recovered by addition of more $Mg^{2+}$ ions, suggesting that these ions inactivate the enzyme with a mechanism other than competition with $Mg^{2+}$ ions. Inhibition of the AHL enzyme activity may result in accumulation of PAP, which is highly toxic to the cell. Thus, the AHL enzyme could be one of the intial targets of heavy metal toxicity in plants.

• Journal of Korean Biological Nursing Science
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.127-132
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• 2010

Purpose: The aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of Xanthium sibiricum Patr. on carcinogenesis. Method: Water extract from Xanthium sibiricum Patr. (XPW) was prepared and investigated for the potential antitumor activity and inhibition of benzo[a]pyrene-DNA adduct formation and free radical formation. Result: It was shown that the water possess considerable toxicity toward tumor cell lines. Concentration of XPW at 1.0 mg/mL and 2.5 mg/mL resulted in more than 30% inhibition of growth in HeLa cells. Toxicity of XPW to A549 revealed that 54% inhibition of growth at concentration of 2.5 mg/mL. At concentrations of 0.5 mg/mL, 1.0 mg/mL and 2.5 mg/mL of XPW, the binding of [$^3H$]B[a]P metabolites to DNA of human Chang cell was inhibited by 19%, 33%, and 41%, respectively. There 18% and 32% inhibition in the free radical formation with XPW at the concentration of 1.0 mg/mL and 2.5 mg/mL, respectively. Conclusion: Water extract from Xanthium sibiricum Patr. (XPW) has antitumor and cancer chemopreventive activities.

• Development and Reproduction
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.417-424
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• 2017

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is neurodegenerative disease, characterized by the progressive decline of memory, cognitive functions, and changes in personality. The major pathological features in postmortem brains are neurofibrillary tangles and amyloid beta ($A{\beta}$) deposits. The majority of AD cases are sporadic and age-related. Although AD pathogenesis has not been established, aging and declining mitochondrial function has been associated. Mitochondrial dysfunction has been observed in AD patients' brains and AD mice models, and the mice with a genetic defect in mitochondrial complex I showed enhanced $A{\beta}$ level in vivo. To elucidate the role of mitochondrial complex I in AD, we used SH-SY5Y cells transfected with DNA constructs expressing human amyloid precursor protein (APP) or human Swedish APP mutant (APP-swe). The expression of APP-swe increased the level of $A{\beta}$ protein in comparison with control. When complex I was inhibited by rotenone, the increase of ROS level was remarkably higher in the cells overexpressing APP-swe compared to control. The number of dead cell was significantly increased in APP-swe-expressing cells by complex I inhibition. We suggest that complex I dysfunction accelerate amyloid toxicity and mitochondrial complex I dysfunction in aging may contribute to the pathogenesis of sporadic AD.

• Journal of Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.57 no.2
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• pp.131-136
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• 2014

An attempt was made to assess metal ionic toxicity levels of different fishes in the polluted rivers viz., Buriganga and Turag. Fish samples collected from two polluted rivers were analyzed for the levels of metals such as Cd, Cr, Cu, Mn, Pb, and Zn in order to elucidate the status of these contaminants in fish meant for human consumption. The detected concentrations of Cr, Cu, Mn, and Zn ions in fish species collected from the polluted rivers were below the toxic levels and did not appear to pose a threat. Among the analyzed metals, Cd and Pb ions were detected above the permissible levels in liver and muscle tissues of stinging catfish (Heteropneustesfossilis), spotted snakehead (Channapunctata) and wallago (Wallagoattu) collected from the polluted rivers causing toxicity for human consumption. Stinging catfish (Heteropneustesfossilis) was the species found to highly bioaccumulate these metals. Fish species bioconcentrated appreciable amounts of Cd and Pb as toxic metals in the liver as compared to the muscle. Levels of these toxic metals varied depending on different tissues in fish species.

• Proceedings of the Plant Resources Society of Korea Conference
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• 2019.10a
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• pp.106-106
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• 2019

The leaves of Phaleria nisidai Kaneh. have been used as a beverage for tonic and immune-enhancing effect in Palau. Recently, extract of the plants showed anti-diabetic effect in clinical trial and possibility could be used as a medicine for diabetes. However, in vitro and in vivo experiments which elucidate cytotoxicity and biological mechanism have not been studied yet. To begin the series of in vitro and in vivo anti-diabetic studies, we evaluated cell viability of pancreatic beta cell lines to figure it out toxicity of the extract. The leaves of Phaleria nisidai were extracted with distilled water and 70% EtOH, and followed by evaporation and lyophilization. And, MIN6 and RIN-m5F cell lines were used for assessment of cell viability. MTT assay was adopted to evaluated a toxicity. Any of extract and concentration used in this study did not show cytotoxicity in the cell lines. Furthermore, morphological change was not observed. These results means Phaleria nisidai might be a medicinal resource when further biological and safety studies would be performed.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF CROP SCIENCE
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• v.51 no.spc1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2006

Rice is the most important crop in Korea and its annual production of 5.2 million ton is followed by over 0.5 million ton of bran as by-products of milling process. Although rice bran contains various nutritious and pharmaceutical compounds, rice brans are rarely utilized as functional food sources in Korea. In recent, tocotrienols are well known having distinctive pharmaceutical effectiveness. So tocotrienols extracted from rice bran oil were evaluated about Pharmaceutical function. The $IC_{50}$ of tocotrienols products against liver cancer, HepG2 cells were $149mg\;mL^{-1}$, indicating anticancer activity of final products. By animal feeding tests, the final products containing tocotrienols did not induce any toxicity signs in mortality, Incidence of clinical signs, body weight, etc. after a single oral administration, which proved safety of the tocotrienol products. In conclusion, tocotrienol extracted from rice bran has pharmaceutical activity without any toxic effects, which is also suggested tocotrienol products may be a good fortifying nutrition far the health and medical care.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Research
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.413-421
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• 2008

It was previously found that PG102, a water-soluble extract derived from Actinidia arguta, was able to modulate Th1/Th2 pathways and suppress IgE production resulting in dramatic amelioration of atopic dermatitis in NC/Nga mouse and hairless rat models. In order to evaluate the subacute toxicity of PG102, female and male SD rats were daily fed with various doses of PG102 for 4 weeks. Six week old SD rats were randomly divided into 4 groups and orally administrated with 100-, 300-, and 1,000- mg/kg of PG102 as well as the vehicle only. At the end of the study, no significant differences in the body and organ weights were observed between control and treated rats of both genders. Hematological and blood chemical analysis showed little differences between the animal groups. Neither gross abnormalities nor histopathological changes were found. PG102 produced little or no subacute toxicity and could be used as a safe nutraceutical for the treatment of individuals with allergic diseases including atopic dermatitis.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.14 no.9
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• pp.1979-1986
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• 2010

Biological early warning system detects toxicity by looking at behavior of organisms in water. The system uses classifier for judgement about existence and amount of toxicity in water. Boosting algorithm is one of possible application method for improving performance in a classifier. Boosting repetitively change training example set by focusing on difficult examples in basic classifier. As a result, prediction performance is improved for the events which are difficult to classify, but the information contained in the events which can be easily classified are discarded. In this paper, an incremental learning method to overcome this shortcoming is proposed by using the extended data expression. In this algorithm, decision tree classifier define class distribution information using the weight parameter in the extended data expression by exploiting the necessary information not only from the well classified, but also from the weakly classified events. Experimental results show that the new algorithm outperforms the former Learn++ method without using the weight parameter.