• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.256-263
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• 2007

We performed the biochemical characteristics, molecular epidemiologocal analysis, and drug susceptibility test on V. vulnificus isolated from environmental sources in Incheon. For this study, 233 strains were isolated from seawater, sediment, shellfish. V. vulnificus isolates were divided into 15 biochemical groups, which were positive for ONPG and Amygdalin test. Among the 209 strains, 206 (98.6%) strains and 110 (52.6%) strains revealed positive for vvhA and viuB gene, and the viuB gene detection rates of V. vulnificus from seawater, shellfish and sediment were 48%, 48.5% and 61.6%, respectively. From disc diffusion test on 175 isolates, most of strains were sensitive to Imipenem (100.0%), Sulfamethoxazole/trimethoprim (98.9%), Tetracycline, Ciprofloxacin (98.3%), Ampicillin/sulbactam (97.1%), Ohloramphenicol (96.6%), Cefepime (94.9%) and Ceftriaxone (94.8%), multi-drug resistance rates was 31.5% of seawater, 34.4% of sediment and 29.2% of shellfish. PFGE was performed on 233 V. vulnificus isolates with the objective of investigating the extent of genetic diversity of these isolates in our region. We could find that at least 126 different PFGE patterns were generated according by 90% of similarity and 13 clusters by 58% of similarity. The major cluster was type I (44.6%) during the most of the year, and type J was frequent pattern in June and October. There were 9 distinct PFGE types in July, 8 types in August, 7 types in June, 6 types in September, 5 types in October 3 types in May and 1 type in March.

• Journal of Oral Medicine and Pain
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.137-150
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• 2007

Trees emit phytoncide into atmosphere to protect them from predation. Phytoncide from different trees has its own unique fragrance that is referred to as forest bath. Phytoncide, which is essential oil of trees, has microbicidal, insecticidal, acaricidal, and deodorizing effect. The present study was performed to examine the effect of phytoncide on Porphyromonas gingivalis, which is one of the most important causative agents of periodontitis and halitosis. P. gingivalis 2561 was incubated with or without phytoncide extracted from Hinoki (Chamaecyparis obtusa Sieb. et Zucc.; Japanese cypress) and then changes were observed in its cell viability, antibiotic sensitivity, morphology, and biochemical/molecular biological pattern. The results were as follows: 1. The phytoncide appeared to have a strong antibacterial effect on P. gingivalis. MIC of phytoncide for the bacterium was determined to be 0.008%. The antibacterial effect was attributed to bactericidal activity against P. gingivalis. It almost completely suppressed the bacterial cell viability (>99.9%) at the concentration of 0.01%, which is the MBC for the bacterium. 2. The phytoncide failed to enhance the bacterial susceptibility to ampicillin, cefotaxime, penicillin, and tetracycline but did increase the susceptibility to amoxicillin. 3. Numbers of electron dense granules, ghost cell, and vesicles increased with increasing concentration of the phytoncide, 4. RT-PCR analysis revealed that expression of superoxide dismutase was increased in the bacterium incubated with the phytoncide. 5. No distinct difference in protein profile between the bacterium incubated with or without the phytoncide was observed as determined by SDS-PAGE and immunoblot. Overall results suggest that the phytoncide is a strong antibacterial agent that has a bactericidal action against P. gingivalis. The phytoncide does not seem to affect much the profile of the major outer membrane proteins but interferes with antioxidant activity of the bacterium. Along with this, yet unknown mechanism may cause changes in cell morphology and eventually cell death.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.123-132
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• 2015

Purpose: The objective of this study was to examine whether Hamcho freeze-dried powder and Hamcho freeze-dried nano powder have an anti-obese effect on high fat diet-induced obese rats. Methods: Sprague Dawley rats were divided into 6 different groups, each of which was bred for 8 weeks with a different experimental diet: normal diet group (NC), high fat diet group (HFC), high fat diet + 2% Salicornia herbacea L. freeze-dried powder group (2% HS), high fat diet + 5% Salicornia herbacea L. freeze-dried powder group (5%HS), high fat diet + 1% Salicornia herbacea L. freeze-dried nano powder group (1% HSN), high fat diet + 2% Salicornia herbacea L. freeze-dried nano powder group (2% HSN). Results: The 5% HS group showed a weight loss effect in body weight, liver and adipose tissue by reducing the amount of dietary intake and food efficiency ratio. In addition, the 5% HS group showed a significant reduction of serum leptin concentration, while having a beneficial effect on the improvement of lipid metabolism such as increase the serum concentration of adiponectin. However, Hamcho freeze-dried nano powder did not show a weight loss effect. Conclusion: Overall data indicated that Hamcho seemed to have anti-obesity effects. In particular, consumption of 5% Hamcho freeze-dried powder might have beneficial effects on body weight, serum adiponectin level, and lipid profiles since it led to reduced body weight and growth of adipose tissues by suppressing dietary intakes. However conduct of further research studies is needed for analysis of active components and biochemical action mechanism of Hamcho.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.43 no.8
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• pp.1139-1147
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• 2014

We investigated whether or not Schisandra chinensis (SC), a traditional herbal medicine, has protective effects against alcohol-induced fatty liver and blood alcohol clearance. Two tests focused on acute intoxication and chronic ethanol treatment were carried out. For the chronic ethanol treatment test, rats were fed ethanol by intragastric administration everyday for 8 weeks to induce alcoholic fatty liver. Ethanol treatment significantly increased blood alcohol concentration at 90 min after acute ethanol intoxication. Compared with the two ethanol-treated groups, rats administered ethanol along with SC extracts showed an approximately 13% increased blood alcohol clearance rate at 360 min. Chronic ethanol treatment significantly increased serum and hepatic triglyceride (TG) levels, and caused fatty degeneration of liver. Ethanol treatment also elevated the serum total-cholesterol (TC) level. However, after feeding of ethanol plus SC extracts, ethanol-induced elevation of hepatic TG levels reversed, whereas elevation of serum TG and TC levels was not observed after treatment with SC extracts. Ethanol treatment significantly increased ${\gamma}$-GT, aspartate aminotransferase, and alanine aminotransferase activities after 8 weeks. Compared with the ethanol-fed group, rats administered ethanol plus SC extracts for 4 weeks showed attenuated fatty degeneration as well as decreased hepatic function test values. SC administration also significantly increased intracellular lipid accumulation in hepatocytes and reduced steatosis score and hepatic TG levels, as measured by biochemical and histolopathological analyses. Our results indicate that the protective effects of SC are accompanied by a significant decrease in hepatic TG levels, thereby suggesting SC has the ability to prevent ethanol-induced fatty liver, by reducing hepatic TG and enzyme levels in alcoholic rats.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.17 no.3 s.83
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• pp.386-395
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• 2007

A total of 27 strains of Vibrio parahaemolyticus (18 strains isolated from Korea and 9 strains from Japan) were serotyped and examined for biochemical characteristics, antimicrobial susceptibility patterns, cytotoxicity assay, thermostable direct hemolysin (TDH) production and molecular epidemiology. Using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method and DNA probe hybridization method, the strains were tested for toxR, tdh, trh and ORF 8 genes. The V. parahaemolyticus isolated from patients were belonged to 8 different serotypes : O3:K6, O1:K38, O3:K57, O4:K9, O4:Kl2, O4:K68, O5:Kl5 and O6:K46. Urease-positive strain possessed the trh gene, and conversely, urease-negative strains lacked the gene, indicating that urease production by V. parahemolyticus strains strongly correlates with the possession of the trh gene. Most strains showed multiple resistant to more than three antibiotics and the antibiogram could be classified into 6 group (I to VI). All of the O3:K6 strains isolated in South Korea and Japan producted TDH at high levels. The TDH titers ranged between 256 and 2.048, and the average titer was 1009. To distinguish the new and increasingly common V. parahaemolyticus strains from clinical isolates, ORF 8 is a useful genetic marker. After Southern hybridization, the HindIII restriction fragment patterns of the tdh gene were grouped one type, respectively. One type showed two bands one of which was 4.3kb and the other was 11.5kb in size. Variation between the O3:K6 serotype are minor when compared to the differences seen with the non O3:K6 strains. The migration patterns of Not I -digested of the total DNA of the O3:K6 strains were similar, and only slight variations were observed between the serotypes. By contrast, the O3:K6 strains and non O3:K6 had markedly different profiles. In conclusion, Random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) profile using appropriate primers was an effective epidemiological marker.

• Korean Journal of Poultry Science
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.143-150
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• 2021

In this study, we investigated the effects of light intensity on broiler chick growth performance, blood parameters, and stress levels. A total of 240 one-day-old male Ross 308 broilers (47.97±0.166 g) were subjected to three different intensities of light (20, 30, and 50 lx), with each treatment being conducted with four replicates. On the seventh day, the growth performance (body weight, feed conversion ratio, and breast muscle and liver weights) and blood parameters were determined; the levels of serum corticosterone, interleukin-6 (IL-6), and tumor necrosis factor-α were also evaluated. The body weight, weight gain, liver weight, and breast muscle weight of chicks exposed to a light intensity of 50 lx were significantly increased compared with those of chicks subjected to 20 lx (P<0.05). No significant differences were observed in the leukocyte, erythrocyte, and platelet counts and the biochemical profile exceptions being the levels of glucose and inorganic phosphorus in the blood of the chicks in the three light intensity groups. However, serum corticosterone and IL-6 levels were the highest in chicks exposed to a light intensity of 20 lx (P<0.05). In conclusion, the findings of this study indicate that broiler chicks exposed to higher light intensity (50 lx) show significant improvements in terms of weight gain and corticosterone and IL-6 levels. Thus, high light intensities enhanced the growth performance, stress levels, and immune status of broiler chicks.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.236-245
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• 2019

Fruit ripening is a genetically programmed process involving a number of biochemical and physiological processes assisted by variations in gene expression and enzyme activities. This process generally affects the phytochemical profile and the bioactive principles in fruits and vegetables. To appraise the variation in bioactive principles of fruits from Rosa rugosa during its ripening process, we analyzed the changes in antioxidant and anti-elastase activities and polyphenolic compounds during the four ripening stages of fruits. Overall, an extract of unripe fruits contained the highest levels of total phenolic and flavonoid contents, radical scavenging activity, reducing power, oxygen radical antioxidant capacity, and elastase inhibitory activity, compared with the extracts of fruits at other stages of ripening. Additionally, we found that the reduction of flavonoid content occurs because of decreased transcriptional levels of genes involved in flavonoid biosynthesis pathway during the ripening process. Based on HPLC analysis, we found that the extract of unripe fruits contained the highest amount of myricetin, caffeic acid, chlorogenic acid, syringic acid, and p-coumaric acid and suggested that the antioxidant and anti-elastase activities of the extract obtained from stage 1, should be mediated by the presence of these compounds. Additionally, we analyzed the interaction sites and patterns between these compounds and elastase using the structure-based molecular docking approach, and suggested that chlorogenic acid strongly interacted with elastase. Together, these findings suggest that the maturity of fruits has profound effects on the pharmaceutical value of R. rugosa.