• International Journal of Industrial Entomology and Biomaterials
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.89-93
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• 2004

Expression of a fusion protein between B. thuringiensis crystal protein, Cry1Ac1 and a scorpion insect toxin (AaIT, Androctonus australis Hector insect toxin) in acrystalliferous B. thuringiensis strain (Cry-B strain) was examined. The cry 1Ac1 gene was cloned in B. thuringiensis-E coli shuttle vector, pHT3101, under the control of the native cry 1Ac1 gene promoter (pProAc) and a gene encoding AaIT was inserted in XhoI site in the middle of the cry 1Ac1 gene (pProAc-ScoR). B. thuringiensis Cry-B strain carrying pProAc-ScoR (PyoAc-ScoR/CB) produced an inclusion body of irregular shape and the expressed fusion protein is approximately 65 kDa in size. Sporulated cells and spore-crystal mixtures of ProAc-ScoR/CB had insecticidal activity against Plutella xylostella larvae, showing $LT_50$ of ProAc-ScoR/CB (22.59 hrs) lower than that of ProAc/CB (30.06 hrs) at $1{\times}{10^7} {CEU/cm^2}$. These results suggest that the fusion protein including a B. thuringiensis crystal protein and an AaIT may be functionally expressed in B. thupingiensis. Moreover, we verified the additive toxicity of AaIT, which is a new feasible candidate for insect control.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.36-42
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• 2013

The average twin lambing rate of Bayanbulak sheep is 2% to 3%. However, a flock of sheep with a close genetic relationship and an average of 2 to 3 lambs per birth has been found recently. To determine the major genes controlling the prolificacy of the flock in the present study, the flock was designated A while 100 normal Bayanbulak sheep were randomly selected to comprise the control flock B. Ligase detection reaction method was applied to detect and analyze the 10 mutational loci of the 3 candidate prolificacy genes including bone morphogenetic protein type I receptors, bone morphogenetic protein 15, and growth differentiation factor 9. The 10 mutational loci are as follows: FecB locus of the BMPR-IB gene; $FecX^I$, $FecX^B$, $FecX^L$, $FecX^H$, $FecX^G$, and $FecX^R$ of the BMP15 gene; and G1, G8, and FecTT of the GDF9 gene. Two mutations including BMPR-IB/FecB and GDF9/G1 were found in Bayanbulak sheep. Independence test results of the two flocks demonstrate that the FecB locus has a significant effect on the lambing number of Bayanbulak sheep. However, the mutation frequency of the G1 locus in GDF9 is very low. Independence test results demonstrate that the GDF9 locus does not have a significant impact on the lambing performance of Bayanbulak sheep. Among the 10 detected loci, BMPR-IB/FecB is the major gene that influences the high lambing rate of Bayanbulak sheep.

• Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.106-110
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• 2001

Background : Dopamine receptors have been regarded as a strong candidate involved in etiology of schizophrenia and a target for various antipsychotic drugs. The purpose of our study was to investigate whether dopamine $D_1$ receptor(DRD1) gene polymorphisms would predict the treatment response to antipsychotics in schizophrenia. Method : One hundred thirty-four schizophrenic patients, who met DSM-IV criteria for schizophrenia were entered into a 48 -week study. The psychopathology of the patients was assessed at baseline, 12th, 24th 48th weeks of treatment by PANSS. Responders were defined by a 20% of the reduction in total PANSS score at end point. The genomic DNA fragment corresponding to nucleotides of dopamine $D_1$ receptor gene was amplified by polymerase chain reaction(PCR). Result: Neither allelic frequencies nor genotypes for dopamine $D_1$ receptor differed significantly between responders and non-responders. Also, there was no difference of changes of PANSS scores among three genotype groups of the dopamine $D_1$ receptor. Conclusion : Allelic variation in the dopamine $D_1$ gene is not associated with individual differences in antipsychotic response.

• Archives of Plastic Surgery
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.671-678
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• 2007

Purpose: Venous malformation(VM) which often causes pain and discomfort is the most common type of vascular malformations. Although it is presented with disfigured appearance and associated soft tissue or skeletal hypertrophy, the molecular bases of VMs are poorly understood. Differentially expressed genes(DEGs) of VMs were investigated to illuminate the molecular mechanism of the disease entity. Methods: Gene expressions of VM patients' subcutaneous tissue were studied in comparison with normal persons' by $GeneFishing^{TM}$ technique using the annealing control primers (ACPs) to identify DEGs. Candidate genes were sequenced and screened by basic local alignment search tool (BLAST) afterwards. Results: Among seventy DEGs identified, forty DEGs which had shown significantly different expression pattern were sequenced. Twenty eight out of 40 were up-regulated while 12 were down-regulated. BLAST searches revealed that 37 were known genes and 3 were unknown genes. Many genes were involved in the differentiation and remodeling of smooth muscle cells, opposed to the previous hypothesis that a lot of angiogenetic genes would be involved. Furthermore, several transcription factors and related genes, as well as cell signaling and metabolism regulators, were up regulated. Conclusion: It suggests that analysis of DEGs in VMs provide basic knowledge about its pathophysiology. and new therapeutic approaches.

• Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.262-267
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• 2007

The serotonin 6(5-HT6) receptor gene is a candidate gene for influencing the clinical response to treatment with antidepressants. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between the C267T polymorphism in the 5-HT6 receptor gene and the treatment response to citalopram in a Korean population with major depressive disorder(MDD). Methods : Citalopram was administered for 8 weeks to the 90 patients who completed study. 21-item Hamilton depression rating scale(HAMD-21) was used as a outcome measure. Results : We found that the genotype, allele, and allele-carrier distributions did not differ significantly between MDD patients and normal controls. A main effect of an interaction of genotype with time on the decrease in the HAMD-21 score during the 8 weeks study period was not found. ANOVA revealed no significant effects of the C825T polymorphism on the decrease in the HAMD-21 score at each time period. Conclusions : These results suggest that the C267T polymorphism in the 5-HT6 receptor gene is not associated with the treatment response to citalopram.

• Reproductive and Developmental Biology
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.207-212
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• 2012

The shortage of human organs for transplantation has induced the research on the possibility of using animal as porcine. However, pig to human transplantation as known as xeno-transplantation has major problem as immunorejection. Recently, the solutions of pig to human xenotransplantation are commonly mentioned as having a genetically modification which include alpha 1, 3 galatosyl transferase knockout (GTKO) and immune-suppressing gene transgenic model. Unfortunately, the expression level of transgenic gene is very low activity. Therefore, development of gene overexpression system is the most urgent issue. Also, the tissue specific overexpression system is very important. Because most blood vessels are endothelial cells, establishment of the endothelial-specific promoter is attractive candidates for the introduction of suppressing immunorejection. In this study, we focus the ICAM2 promoter which has endothelial-specific regulatory region. To detect the regulatory region of ICAM2 promoter, we cloned 3.7 kb size mini-pig ICAM2 promoter. We conduct serial deletion of 5' flanking region of mini-pig ICAM2 promoter then selected promoter size as 1 kb, 1.5 kb, 2 kb, 2.5 kb, and 3 kb. To analyze promoter activity, luciferase assay system was conducted among these vectors and compare endothelial activity with epithelial cells. The reporter gene assay revealed that ICAM2 promoter has critical activity in endothelial cells (CPAE) and 1 kb size of ICAM2 promoter activity was significantly increased. Taken together, our studies suggest that mini-pig ICMA2 promoter is endothelial cell specific overexpression promoter and among above all size of promoters, 1 kb size promoter is optimal candidate to overcome the vascular immunorejection in pig to human xenotransplantation.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.67-74
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• 2003

Starvation promoters can be utilized for in situ bioremediation and for the efficient bioprocessing. Previously we have cloned and characterized strong starvation promoters from envrionmentally relevant bacteria, Pseudomonas putida strains (Y. Kim, and A. Matin, J. Bacteriol. 177:1850-1859, 1995). Here we report the construction of the plasmid pYKS101 using one of the starvation promoters from P. putida MK1. The pYKS101 was found to be useful for a novel starvation promoter-driven gene expression system. Under this system, the target reporter gene, lacZ, was stably integrated into the chromosomal DNA of P. putida MK1. ${\beta}$-galactosidase activity was found to be four-fold higher upon carbon starvation than during exponential growth. The resultant recombinant strain is indigenous to the environment contaminated with various toxic materials, hence can be a good candidate for in situ bioremediation.

• Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.21.1-21.11
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• 2016

Background: The evaluation of suitable reference genes as normalization controls is a prerequisite requirement for launching quantitative reverse transcription-PCR (RT-qPCR)-based expression study. In order to select the stable reference genes in abalone Haliotis discus hannai tissues (gill and hepatopancreas) under heavy metal exposure conditions (Cu, Zn, and Cd), 12 potential candidate housekeeping genes were subjected to expression stability based on the comprehensive ranking while integrating four different statistical algorithms (geNorm, NormFinder, BestKeeper, and ${\Delta}CT$ method). Results: Expression stability in the gill subset was determined as RPL7 > RPL8 > ACTB > RPL3 > PPIB > RPL7A > EF1A > RPL4 > GAPDH > RPL5 > UBE2 > B-TU. On the other hand, the ranking in the subset for hepatopancreas was RPL7 > RPL3 > RPL8 > ACTB > RPL4 > EF1A > RPL5 > RPL7A > B-TU > UBE2 > PPIB > GAPDH. The pairwise variation assessed by the geNorm program indicates that two reference genes could be sufficient for accurate normalization in both gill and hepatopancreas subsets. Overall, both gill and hepatopancreas subsets recommended ribosomal protein genes (particularly RPL7) as stable references, whereas traditional housekeepers such as ${\beta}-tubulin$ (B-TU) and glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) genes were ranked as unstable genes. The validation of reference gene selection was confirmed with the quantitative assay of MT transcripts. Conclusions: The present analysis showed the importance of validating reference genes with multiple algorithmic approaches to select genes that are truly stable. Our results indicate that expression stability of a given reference gene could not always have consensus across tissue types. The data from this study could be a good guide for the future design of RT-qPCR studies with respect to metal regulation/detoxification and other related physiologies in this abalone species.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.16
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• pp.6613-6618
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• 2014

Background: The X-ray repair cross-complementing group 3 (XRCC3) is a highly suspected candidate gene for cancer susceptibility. Attention has been drawn upon associations of the XRCC3 Thr241Met polymorphism with breast cancer risk. However, the previous published findings remain controversial. Hence, we performed a meta-analysis to accurately evaluate any association between breast cancer and XRCC3 T241M (23, 812 cases and 25, 349 controls) in different inheritance models. Materials and Methods: PubMed and Web of Science databases were searched systematically until December 31, 2013 to obtain all the records evaluating the association between the XRCC3 Thr241Met polymorphism and breast cancer risk. Crude odds ratios (ORs) together with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were used to assess the strength of associations. Results: When all eligible studies were pooled into the meta analysis of XRCC3 T241M polymorphism, a significantly increased breast cancer risk was observed in heterozygote comparison (OR=1.06, 95%CI=1.01-1.12). No significant associations were found in other models. In subgroup analysis, this polymorphism seemed to be associated with elevated breast risk in Asians. No publication bias was detected. Conclusions: This meta-analysis suggests that the T241M polymorphism confers a weakly increased breast cancer risk. A study with the larger sample size is needed to further evaluate gene-gene and gene-environment interactions of the XRCC3 T241M polymorphism with breast cancer risk.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.21 no.10
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• pp.1001-1011
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• 2011

To explore bacterial diversity for elucidating genetic variability in acylhomoserine lactone (AHL) lactonase structure, we screened 800 bacterial strains. It revealed the presence of a quorum quenching (QQ) AHL-lactonase gene (aiiA) in 42 strains. These 42 strains were identified using rrs (16S rDNA) sequencing as Bacillus strains, predominantly B. cereus. An in silico restriction endonuclease (RE) digestion of 22 AHL lactonase gene (aiiA) sequences (from NCBI database) belonging to 9 different genera, along with 42 aiiA gene sequences from different Bacillus spp. (isolated here) with 14 type II REs, revealed distinct patterns of fragments (nucleotide length and order) with four REs; AluI, DpnII, RsaI, and Tru9I. Our study reflects on the biodiversity of aiiA among Bacillus species. Bacillus sp. strain MBG11 with polymorphism (115Alanine > Valine) may confer increased stability to AHL lactonase, and can be a potential candidate for heterologous expression and mass production. Microbes with ability to produce AHL-lactonases degrade quorum sensing signals such as AHL by opening of the lactone ring. The naturally occurring diversity of QQ molecules provides opportunities to use them for preventing bacterial infections, spoilage of food, and bioremediation.