• 생명과학회지
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• 제18권9호
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• pp.1312-1315
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• 2008

DAPI 염색을 이용하여 세포사멸 유도물질의 초고속스크리닝에 적합한 protocol을 제작하였다. Liquid handler에서 dispensing과 multilabel counter에서의 상대적인 fluorescent intensity를 측정하는 과정을 자동화한 protocol을 제작하였고, 이의 과정은 매우 효율적으로 가동되었음을 확인하였다. DAPI에 binding된 DNA의 intensity를 측정하는 조건검토에서 가장자리의 36개를 reading하지 않는 것이 edge effect를 줄일수 있는 것을 확인하였고, 0.1 sec reading으로 시간을 절약할 수 있었다. 이의 결과를 효과적으로 이용할 경우, 세포사멸 유도물질의 초고속스크리닝 또는 이에 적합한 스크리닝이 가능함을 확인하였다.

• Toxicological Research
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• 제35권4호
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• pp.343-351
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• 2019

Many in vitro developmental toxicity assays have been proposed over several decades. Since the late 1980s, we have made intermittent attempts to introduce in vitro assays as screening tests for developmental toxicity of inhouse candidate products. Two cell-based assays which were developed two decades apart were intensively studied. One was an assay of inhibitory effects on mouse ascites tumor cell attachment to a concanavalin A-coated plastic sheet surface (MOT assay), which we studied in the early days of assay development. The other was an assay of inhibitory effects on the differentiation of mouse embryonic stem cell to beating heart cells (EST assay), which we assessed more recently. We evaluated the suitability of the assays for screening in-house candidates. The concordance rates with in vivo developmental toxicity were at the 60% level. The EST assay classified chemicals that inhibited cell proliferation as embryo-toxic. Both assays had a significant false positive rate. The assays were generally considered unsuitable for screening the developmental toxicity of our candidate compounds. Recent test systems adopt advanced technologies. Despite such evolution of materials and methods, the concordance rates of the EST and MOT systems were similar. This may suggest that the fundamental predictivity of in vitro developmental toxicity assays has remained basically unchanged for decades. To improve their predictivity, in vitro developmental toxicity assays should be strictly based on elucidated pathogenetic mechanisms of developmental toxicity.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• 제32권6호
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• pp.718-729
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• 2022

Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is the most common primary esophageal malignancy with poor prognosis. Here, due to the necessity for exploring potential therapies against ESCC, we obtained the gene expression data on ESCC from the TCGA and GEO databases. Venn diagram analysis was applied to identify common targets. The protein-protein interaction network was constructed by Cytoscape software, and the hub targets were extracted from the network via cytoHubba. The potential hub nodes as drug targets were found by pharmacophore-based virtual screening and molecular modeling, and the antitumor activity was evaluated through in vitro studies. A total of 364 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in ESCC were identified. Pathway enrichment analyses suggested that most DEGs were mainly involved in the cell cycle. Three hub targets were retrieved, including CENPF, CCNA2 (cyclin A), and CCNB1 (cyclin B1), which were highly expressed in esophageal cancer and associated with prognosis. Moreover, amentoflavone, a promising drug candidate found by pharmacophore-based virtual screening, showed antiproliferative and proapoptotic effects and induced G1 in esophageal squamous carcinoma cells. Taken together, our findings suggested that amentoflavone could be a potential cell cycle inhibitor targeting cyclin B1, and is therefore expected to serve as a great therapeutic agent for treating esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

• Molecules and Cells
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• 제45권12호
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• pp.923-934
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• 2022

Human pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hPSC-CMs) have great potential in applications such as regenerative medicine, cardiac disease modeling, and in vitro drug evaluation. However, hPSC-CMs are immature, which limits their applications. During development, the maturation of CMs is accompanied by a decline in their proliferative capacity. This phenomenon suggests that regulating the cell cycle may facilitate the maturation of hPSC-CMs. Aurora kinases are essential kinases that regulate the cell cycle, the role of which is not well studied in hPSC-CM maturation. Here, we demonstrate that CYC116, an inhibitor of Aurora kinases, significantly promotes the maturation of CMs derived from both human embryonic stem cells (H1 and H9) and iPSCs (induced PSCs) (UC013), resulting in increased expression of genes related to cardiomyocyte function, better organization of the sarcomere, increased sarcomere length, increased number of mitochondria, and enhanced physiological function of the cells. In addition, a number of other Aurora kinase inhibitors have also been found to promote the maturation of hPSC-CMs. Our data suggest that blocking aurora kinase activity and regulating cell cycle progression may promote the maturation of hPSC-CMs.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• 제22권5호
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• pp.371-383
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• 2014

The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) offers a unique opportunity for biological and basic medical researches due to its genetic tractability and well-defined developmental lineage. It also provides an exceptional model for genetic, molecular, and cellular analysis of human disease-related genes. Recently, C. elegans has been used as an ideal model for the identification and functional analysis of drugs (or small-molecules) in vivo. In this review, we describe conserved oncogenic signaling pathways (Wnt, Notch, and Ras) and their potential roles in the development of cancer stem cells. During C. elegans germline development, these signaling pathways regulate multiple cellular processes such as germline stem cell niche specification, germline stem cell maintenance, and germ cell fate specification. Therefore, the aberrant regulations of these signaling pathways can cause either loss of germline stem cells or overproliferation of a specific cell type, resulting in sterility. This sterility phenotype allows us to identify drugs that can modulate the oncogenic signaling pathways directly or indirectly through a high-throughput screening. Current in vivo or in vitro screening methods are largely focused on the specific core signaling components. However, this phenotype-based screening will identify drugs that possibly target upstream or downstream of core signaling pathways as well as exclude toxic effects. Although phenotype-based drug screening is ideal, the identification of drug targets is a major challenge. We here introduce a new technique, called Drug Affinity Responsive Target Stability (DARTS). This innovative method is able to identify the target of the identified drug. Importantly, signaling pathways and their regulators in C. elegans are highly conserved in most vertebrates, including humans. Therefore, C. elegans will provide a great opportunity to identify therapeutic drugs and their targets, as well as to understand mechanisms underlying the formation of cancer.

• Journal of mucopolysaccharidosis and rare diseases
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• 제3권1호
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• pp.14-19
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• 2017

Lysosomal storage diseases (LSDs) are a group of rare inherited metabolic disorders caused by the deficiency of specific lysosomal enzymes and subsequent accumulation of substrates. Enzyme deficiency leads to progressive intra-lysosomal accumulation of the incompletely degraded substances, which cause dysfunction and destruction of the cell and eventually multiple organ damage. Patients have a broad spectrum of clinical phenotypes which are generally not specific for some LSDs, leading to missed or delayed diagnosis. Due to the availability of treatment including enzyme replacement therapy (ERT) and hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for some LSDs, early diagnosis is important. ERT products have been approved with optimal outcomes for some LSDs in the recent decades, including Gaucher, Fabry, mucopolysaccharidosis (MPS) I, Pompe, MPS VI, MPS II, and MPS IVA diseases. ERT can stabilize the clinical condition, prevent disease progression, and improve the long-term outcome of these diseases, especially if started prior to irreversible organ damage. Based on the availability of therapy and suitable screening methods in the recent years, some LSDs, including Pompe, Fabry, Gaucher, MPS I, MPS II, and MPS VI diseases have been incorporated into nationwide newborn screening panels in Taiwan.

• International Journal of Oral Biology
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• 제37권2호
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• pp.43-50
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• 2012

The use of high throughput screening (HTS) in drug development is principally for the selection new drug candidates or screening of chemical toxicants. This system minimizes the experimental environment and allows for the screening of candidates at the same time. Umbilical cord-derived stem cells have some of the characteristics of fetal stem cell and have several advantages such as the ease with which they can be obtained and lack of ethical issues. To establish a HTS system, optimized conditions that mimic typical cell culture conditions in a minimal space such as 96 well plates are needed for stem cell growth. We have thus established a novel HTS system using human umbilical cord derived-mesenchymal stem cells (hUC-MSCs). To determine the optimal cell number, hUC-MSCs were serially diluted and seeded at 750, 500, 200 and 100 cells per well on 96 well plates. The maintenance efficiencies of these dilutions were compared for 3, 7, 9, and 14 days. The fetal bovine serum (FBS) concentration (20, 10, 5 and 1%) and the cell numbers (750, 500 and 200 cells/well) were compared for 3, 5 and 7 days. In addition, we evaluated the optimal conditions for cell cycle block. These four independent optimization experiments were conducted using an MTT assay. In the results, the optimal conditions for a HTS system using hUC-MSCs were determined to be 300 cell/well cultured for 8 days with 1 or 5% FBS. In addition, we demonstrated that the optimal conditions for a cell cycle block in this culture system are 48 hours in the absence of FBS. In addition, we selected four types of novel small molecule candidates using our HTS system which demonstrates the feasibility if using hUC-MSCs for this type of screen. Moreover, the four candidate compounds can be tested for stem cell research application.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• 제54권6호
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• pp.812-816
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• 2016

We isolated a novel methylotrophic bacterium from soil collected in Dongducheon Environment Affairs Agency. The isolate was identified as Methylobacterium sp. WJ4 based on phylogenetic analysis. Plackett-Burman design was employed for screening eight parameters of nitrate mineral salts (NMS) medium for cell growth of a newly isolated Methylobacterium sp. WJ4 with experimental validation. Trace element solution and vitamin stock were found to affect cell growth, which can be further optimized for increased cell growth. This is the first report of screening parameters of NMS medium which affect cell growth of strain belonging to the genus Methylobacterium using Plackett-Burman design.

• 대한바이러스학회지
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• 제27권1호
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• pp.69-75
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• 1997

To evaluate in vitro anti-HIV efficacies of nucleoside derivatives, MT-4 cell line was infected with HIV-1 and HIV-2 respectively and treated with various compounds and the formerly approved drugs such as AZT, d4T, ddC and ddI. CPE method was used to evaluate their antiviral activity. Most dideoxynucleosides, AZT, d4T, ddC and ddI, showed anti-HIV activities against both viruses but no other compounds including anti-herpesvirus drugs did any. Further experiments were carried out to study their inhibitory mechanism of viral adsorption. The results showed no inhibition of syncytium formation due to an interaction between the gp120 expressed in HIV -infected cell surface and CD4 receptor on the uninfected cell surface in the presence of AZT. AZT showed no activity up to $100\;{\mu}g/ml$. Inhibition of reverse transcriptase (RT) in the presence of AZT-triphosphate was tested by using RT expressed in E. coli and purified and its $IC_{50}$ was 4.5 nM.

• Korea Journal of Cosmetic Science
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• 제1권1호
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• pp.1-9
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• 2019

The identification of compounds with anti-senescence activity in cell culture system is a first step in aging research. Given that pyruvate can be used energy source by conversion to acetyl-CoA in mitochondria, and protects cultured cell from various stress-induced cell damage and cell death, synthetic media (e.g., DMEM) often includes 1 mM pyruvate, which is very higher than the pyruvate concentration in human blood (approximately 30 ��M). However, the use of medium containing high concentration of pyruvate is not suitable for screening anti-senescence compounds, because pyruvate also protects against the cellular senescence of primary human dermal fibroblasts (NHDFs) through NAD+ generated during conversion to lactate. In this study, four extracts, i.e., Sprouted seed and fruit complex, Poncirus trifoliata fruit extract, Jaum balancing complex, and Prunus mume extract were used for evaluation of different anti-senescence effect in the absence or presence of 0.1 mM pyruvate, similar to the physiological pyruvate concentration. The senescence in NHDFs cultured with DMEM in the presence of 0.1 mM pyruvate (approximately the physiological concentration in human blood) is accelerated, as observed in pyruvate deprivation conditions. The cytotoxicity of the Poncirus trifoliata fruit extract was protected by pyruvate, and Jaum balancing complex and Prunus mume extract had anti-senescence activity in the presence of 0.1 mM pyruvate, but not in the absence of pyruvate. Given that pyruvate is a powerful protector against both cytotoxicity and cellular senescence, the screening of candidate agents for anti-senescence in high pyruvate conditions using an in vitro cell culture system is not valid. Therefore, we recommend the use of a low concentration of pyruvate to evaluate the anti-senescence effects of candidates, which is more similar to in vivo aging conditions than excessive stress-induced senescence models, to exclude the effect of excessive pyruvate in vitro.