• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.57-64
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• 2011

Objectives: Although phthalates like dibutyl phthalate (DBP) and di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP) are commonly used as plasticizers and their metabolites are especially suspected of reproductive toxicity, little is known about occupational exposure to those phthalates. The aim of this study was to assess the utility of measuring the metabolite concentrations of DBP and DEHP in serum and urine samples as an indicator of occupational exposure to those phthalates. Methods: Phthalate metabolites were analyzed by using column-switching high-performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Results: We detected phthalate metabolites in serum and urine matrices at approximately 10-fold lower than the limit of detection of those metabolites in the same matrix by LC-MS/MS without column switching, which was sufficient to evaluate concentrations of phthalate metabolites for industrial workers and the general population. Conclusion: The accuracy and precision of the analytical method indicate that urinary metabolite determination can be a more acceptable biomarker for studying phthalate exposure and adverse health outcomes.

• Molecular & Cellular Toxicology
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.251-256
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• 2006

The exploration of genes which expressions are changed by exposure to ecotoxicants or pollutants can provide the important information about the reaction mechanisms in the body as well as adaptation to exterior stimulus or environmental changes. Also they can be developed as biomarkers for the detection of environmental pollution. Differential display polymerase chain reaction (DD-PCR) technique has been usefully used to hunt the clones which expressions are up-regulated or down-regulated by exterior changes and this study aimed to search for those clones in diesel oil-exposed rockfish (Sebastes schlegeli) using DD-PCR. The RNA isolated from liver of 20 ppb diesel oil-exposed rockfish was used for screening of the differentially displayed genes and total 44 differentially expressed genes (DEG) are detected then their nucleotide sequences were analyzed. The present data provided the general information about the effect of diesel oil contamination on marine organism and further more the primary step in development of new biomarkers for marine environmental pollution or ecotoxicological stresses.

• Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.461-469
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• 2014

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are persistent pollutants in aquatic environments, often causing the decline or disappearance of wild populations. In this study, we used a random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) assay to evaluate the effects on the genomic DNA of olive flounder embryo and larval stages of exposure to Aroclor 1254 at concentrations of 1, 5, 10, 20, and $40{\mu}g/L$. We compared RAPD fingerprints of exposed and non-exposed samples. Polymorphisms were revealed as the presence and/or absence of DNA fragments between the two samples. A dose-dependent increase in the number of polymorphic bands was observed with Aroclor 1254 treatment. Also, RAPD profiles of animals exposed to Aroclor 1254 exhibited an increase in the frequency values (FV) compared to the control. A phenogram constructed using neighbor-joining method indicated that genomic template stability in developing embryo and larval stages was significantly affected at ${\geq}5{\mu}g/L$. This study suggested that DNA polymorphisms detected by RAPD analysis could be used as an investigative tool for environmental toxicology and as a useful biomarker in early life stages for the detection of potential genotoxicants.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.205-215
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• 2017

The brain magnetic resonance images (MRI) is an important imaging biomarker in Alzheimer's disease (AD) as the cerebral atrophy has been shown to strongly associate with cognitive symptoms. The decrease of volume estimates in different structures of the medial temporal lobe related to memory correlates with the decline of cognitive functions in neurodegenerative diseases. During the past decades several methods have been developed for quantifying the disease related atrophy of hippocampus from MRI. Special effort has been dedicated to separate AD and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) related modifications from normal aging for the purpose of early detection and prediction. We trained a multi-class support vector machine (SVM) with probabilistic outputs on a sample (n = 58) of 20 normal controls (NC), 19 individuals with MCI, and 19 individuals with AD. The model was then applied to the cross-validation of same data set which no labels were known and the predictions. This study presents data on the association between MRI quantitative parameters of hippocampus and its quantitative structural changes examination use on the classification of the diseases.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.10-20
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• 2013

Prostate cancer is one of the most prevalent non-skin related cancers. It is the second leading cause of cancer deaths among males in most Western countries. If prostate cancer is diagnosed in its early stages, there is a higher probability that it will be completely cured. Prostatic acid phosphatase (PAP) is a non-specific phosphomonoesterase synthesized in prostate epithelial cells and its level proportionally increases with prostate cancer progression. PAP was the biochemical diagnostic mainstay for prostate cancer until the introduction of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) which improved the detection of early-stage prostate cancer and largely displaced PAP. Recently, however, there is a renewed interest in PAP because of its usefulness in prognosticating intermediate to high-risk prostate cancers and its success in the immunotherapy of prostate cancer. Although PAP is believed to be a key regulator of prostate cell growth, its exact role in normal prostate as well as detailed molecular mechanism of PAP regulation is still unclear. Here, many different aspects of PAP in prostate cancer are revisited and its emerging roles in other environment are discussed.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.345-349
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• 2015

BACKGROUND: In this study, we have attempted to identify a urinary biomarker to assess chlorpyrifos exposure in farmers. The major metabolite and the excretion pathway of chlorpyrifos is 3,5,6-trichloro-2-pyridinol (TCP) in urine. Herein, we describe an adequate synthetic method for TCP hapten for measuring urinary TCP of farmers. METHODS AND RESULTS: First, TCP was prepared by spacer attachment through hydrolysis of thiophosphate ester from chlorpyrifos. After reaction with benzyl bromide, the TCP was transformed into 2,3,5-trichloro-6-benzyloxypyridine. Next, the chlorine in the 2 ^nd position of the pyridyl ring was substituted into 3-mercaptopropanoic acid spacer arm. Finally, the phenyl group attached to the 6 ^th position in pyridyl ring was removed for producing the targeted product, 3-(3,5-Dichloro-6-hydroxy-2-pyridyl) thiopropanoic acid. CONCLUSION: Henceforth, this TCP hapten would be used in developing immunoassay studies for the detection and quantitation of urinary TCP of farmers.

• Annual Conference on Human and Language Technology
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• 2016.10a
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• pp.317-320
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• 2016

기계학습 기반의 자연어처리 모듈에서 중요한 단계 중 하나는 모듈의 입력으로 단어를 표현하는 것이다. 벡터의 사이즈가 크고, 단어 간의 유사성의 개념이 존재하지 않는 One-hot 형태와 대조적으로 유사성을 표현하기 위해서 단어를 벡터로 표현하는 단어 표현 (word representation/embedding) 생성 작업은 자연어 처리 작업의 기계학습 모델의 성능을 개선하고, 몇몇 자연어 처리 분야의 모델에서 성능 향상을 보여 주어 많은 관심을 받고 있다. 본 논문에서는 Word2Vec, CCA, 그리고 GloVe를 사용하여 106,552개의 PubMed의 바이오메디컬 논문의 요약으로 구축된 말뭉치 카테고리의 각 단어 표현 모델의 카테고리 분류 능력을 확인한다. 세부적으로 나눈 카테고리에는 질병의 이름, 질병 증상, 그리고 난소암 마커가 있다. 분류 능력을 확인하기 위해 t-SNE를 이용하여 2차원으로 단어 표현 결과를 맵핑하여 가시화 한다. 2차원으로 맵핑된 결과 값을 코사인 유사도를 사용하여 질병과 바이오 마커간의 유사도를 구한다. 이 유사도 결과 값 상위 20쌍의 결과를 가지고 실제 연구가 되고 있는지 구글 스콜라를 통해 관련 논문을 검색하여 확인하고, 검색 결과를 점수화 한다. 실험 결과 상위 20쌍 중에서 85%의 쌍이 실제적으로 질병과 바이오 마커 간의 관계를 파악하는 방향으로 진행 되고 있으나, 나머지 15%의 쌍에 대해서는 실질적인 연구가 잘 되고 있지 않은 것으로 파악되었다.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.123-129
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• 2021

Polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) synthase is a key enzyme for PHA production in microorganisms. The class IV PHA synthase is composed of two subunits: PhaC and PhaR. The PhaR subunit, which encodes the phaR gene, is only present in class IV PHA synthases. Therefore, the phaR gene is used as a biomarker for bacteria that contain a class IV PHA synthase, such as some Bacillus spp. The phaR gene was developed to screen phaR-containing Bacillus spp. The phaR screening method involved two steps: phaR gene amplification by PCR and phaR amplicon detection using a DNA lateral flow assay. The screening method has a high specificity for phaR-containing Bacillus spp. The lowest amount of genomic DNA of B. thuringiensis ATCC 10792 that the phaR screening method could detect was 10 pg. This novel screening method improves the specificity and sensitivity of phaR gene screening and reduces the time and cost of the screening process, which could enhance the opportunity to discover good candidate PHA producers. Nevertheless, the screening method can certainly be used as a tool to screen phaR-containing Bacillus spp. from environmental samples.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.13-21
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• 2022

There is an increasing interest in monitoring of specific biomarker for determining progression of a disease or efficacy of a treatment. Conventional method for quantification of specific biomarkers as enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) has high material costs, long incubation periods, requires large volume of samples and involves special instruments, which necessitates clinical samples to be sent to a lab. This paper reports on the development of an electrochemical biosensor to measure total immunoglobulin E (IgE), a marker of asthma disease that varies with age, gender, and disease in concentrations from 0.3-1000 ng/mL with consuming 20 µL volume of whole blood sample. The sensor provides rapid, accurate, easy, point-of-care measurement of IgE, also, sequential monitoring of total IgE with ovalbumin (OVA) induced mice is another application of sensor. Taken together, these results provide an alternative way for detection of biomarkers in whole blood with low volumes and long-term ex-vivo assessments for understanding the progression of a disease.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.57 no.8
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• pp.357-362
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• 2014

Purpose: The incidence of Kawasaki disease (KD) is rare in young infants (less than 3 months of age), who present with only a few symptoms that fulfill the clinical diagnostic criteria. The diagnosis for KD can therefore be delayed, leading to a high risk of cardiac complications. We examined the clinical characteristics and measured the serum levels of N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) levels of these patients for assessing its value in the early detection of KD. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the data of young infants diagnosed with KD from 2004 to 2012. The control group included 20 hospitalized febrile patients. Laboratory data, including NT-proBNP were obtained for each patient in both groups. Results: Incomplete KD was observed in 21/24 patients (87.5%). The mean fever duration on admission was $1.36{\pm}1.0$ days in the KD group. Common symptoms included erythema at the site of Bacille Calmette-Guerin inoculation (70.8%), skin rash (50.0%), changes of oropharyngeal mucosa (29.1%), and cervical lymphadenopathy (20.8%). The mean number of major diagnostic criteria fulfilled was $2.8{\pm}1.4$. Five KD patients (20.8%) had only one symptom matching these criteria. The incidence of coronary artery complications was 12.5%. The mean serum NT-proBNP level in the acute phase, in the KD and control groups, were $4,159{\pm}3,714pg/mL$ and $957{\pm}902pg/mL$, respectively, which decreased significantly in the convalescent phase. Conclusion: Incomplete KD was observed in 87.5% patients. Serum NT- proBNP might be a valuable biomarker for the early detection of KD in febrile infants aged <3 months.