• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.1089-1092
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• 2016

Breast cancer is the most commonly occurring and leading cause of cancer deaths among women globally. Hereditary cases account 5-10% of all the cases and CHEK2 is considered as a moderate penetrance breast cancer risk gene. CHEK2 plays a crucial role in response to DNA damage to promote cell cycle arrest and repair DNA damage or induce apoptosis. Our objective in the current study was to analyze mutations in the CHEK2 gene related to breast cancer in Balochistan. A total of 271 individuals including breast cancer patients and normal subjects were enrolled. All 14 exons of CHEK2 were amplified and sequenced. The majority of the patients (>95%) had invasive ductal carcinomas (IDCs), 52.1% were diagnosed with tumor grade III and 56.1% and 27.5% were diagnosed with advance stages III and IV. Two novel nonsense variants i.e. c.58C>T (P.Q20X) and c.256G>T (p.E85X) at exon 1 and 2 in two breast cancer patients were identified in the current study. Both the variants identified were novel and have not been reported elsewhere.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.32 no.12
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• pp.4205-4209
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• 2011

The $Li_2Mn_{0.5}Fe_{0.5}SiO_4$ silicate was prepared by blending of $Li_2MnSiO_4$ and $Li_2FeSiO_4$ precursors with same molar ratio. The one of the silicates of $Li_2FeSiO_4$ is known as high capacitive up to ~330 mAh/g due to 2 mole electron exchange, and the other of $Li_2FeSiO_4$ has identical structure with $Li_2MnSiO_4$ and shows stable cycle with less capacity of ~170 mAh/g. The major drawback of silicate family is low electronic conductivity (3 orders of magnitude lower than $LiFePO_4$). To overcome this disadvantage, carbon composite of the silicate compound was prepared by sucrose mixing with silicate precursors and heat-treated in reducing atmosphere. The crystal structure and physical morphology of $Li_2Mn_{0.5}Fe_{0.5}SiO_4$ was investigated by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and high resolution transmission electron microscopy. The $Li_2Mn_{0.5}Fe_{0.5}SiO_4$/C nanocomposite has a maximum discharge capacity of 200 mAh/g, and 63% of its discharge capacity is retained after the tenth cycles. We have realized that more than 1 mole of electrons are exchanged in $Li_2Mn_{0.5}Fe_{0.5}SiO_4$. We have observed that $Li_2Mn_{0.5}Fe_{0.5}SiO_4$ is unstable structure upon first delithiation with structural collapse. High temperature cell performance result shows high capacity of discharge capacity (244 mAh/g) but it had poor capacity retention (50%) due to the accelerated structural degradation and related reaction.

• Development and Reproduction
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.113-120
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• 2012

We examined the distribution of uterine mast cells in cycling mice of different ages between 7 weeks and 38 weeks by toluidine blue staining. Mast cell density increased gradually depending on the age and culminated at 30 weeks after birth. Of the estrous stages, uteruses at metestrus showed markedly higher density of mast cells than those at the other stages in cycling mice of all ages analysed in this study and the majority of the mast cells were found in myometrium. We also discriminated types of the uterine mast cells in cycling mice at 10 weeks old by Alcian blue-safranin double staining. Mucosal type was most abundant among three types, including connective-tissue types and mixed types, through the entire estrous cycles. The portion of mixed types increased slightly after estrous. The abundance of uterine collagen protein determined by Masson trichrome staining was exactly consistent with the density distribution of the uterine mast cells during estrous cycles. Taken together, these results may imply that uterine mucosal mast cells, together with collagen proteins, are heavily involved in tissue remodeling of cycling mouse uterus.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Crop Science Conference
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• 2017.06a
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• pp.36-36
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• 2017

Out of twenty common protein amino acids, there are many kinds of non protein amino acids (NPAAs) that exist as secondary metabolites and exert ecological functions in plants. Mimosine (Mim), one of those NPAAs derived from L. leucocephala acts as an iron chelator and reversely block mammalian cell cycle at G1/S phases. Cysteine (Cys) is decisive for protein and glutathione that acts as an indispensable sulfur grantor for methionine and many other sulfur-containing secondary products. Cys biosynthesis includes consecutive two steps using two enzymes-serine acetyl transferase (SAT) and O-acetylserine (thiol)lyase (OASTL) and appeared in plant cytosol, chloroplast, and mitochondria. In the first step, the acetylation of the ${\beta}$-hydroxyl of L-serine by acetyl-CoA in the existence of SAT and finally, OASTL triggers ${\alpha}$, ${\beta}$-elimination of acetate from OAS and bind $H_2S$ to catalyze the synthesis of Cys. Mimosine synthase, one of the isozymes of the OASTLs, is able to synthesize Mim with 3-hydroxy-4-pyridone (3H4P) instead of $H_2S$ for Cys in the last step. Thus, the aim of this study was to clone and characterize the cytosolic (Cy) OASTL gene from L. leucocephala, express the recombinant OASTL in Escherichia coli, purify it, do enzyme kinetic analysis, perform docking dynamics simulation analysis between the receptor and the ligands and compare its performance between Cys and Mim synthesis. Cy-OASTL was obtained through both directional degenerate primers corresponding to conserved amino acid region among plant Cys synthase family and the purified protein was 34.3KDa. After cleaving the GST-tag, Cy-OASTL was observed to form mimosine with 3H4P and OAS. The optimum Cys and Mim reaction pH and temperature were 7.5 and $40^{\circ}C$, and 8.0 and $35^{\circ}C$ respectively. Michaelis constant (Km) values of OAS from Cys were higher than the OAS from Mim. Inter fragment interaction energy (IFIE) of substrate OAS-Cy-OASTL complex model showed that Lys, Thr81, Thr77 and Gln150 demonstrated higher attraction force for Cys but 3H4P-mimosine synthase-OAS intermediate complex showed that Gly230, Tyr227, Ala231, Gly228 and Gly232 might provide higher attraction energy for the Mim. It may be concluded that Cy-OASTL demonstrates a dual role in biosynthesis both Cys and Mim and extending the knowledge on the biochemical regulatory mechanism of mimosine and cysteine.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Embryo Transfer Conference
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• 2002.11a
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• pp.98-98
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• 2002

Recruitment of primordial follicles(PMF) is crucial for female fertility. however, factors and mechanisms that regulate this process is poorly understood. The present study was conducted to obtain an inclusive view of the gene expression and to identify novel factors and their pathways of regulating PMF arrest and/or growth initiation. Ovaries from one-day neonatal(consists of oocyte and PMF) and five-day old(consists of PMF and primary follicles, PRIF) mice were collected, either total RNA or mRNA was isolated, and suppression subtractive hybridization(SSH) was used to isolate and clone genes that differentially expressed in day 1 and day 5 ovaries. Confirmation that some of these genes are differentially expressed in PMF and/or in PRIF was accomplished by using laser captured microdissection(LCM), RT-PCR. in situ hybridization(ISH) and/or immunohistochemistry(IHC). In toto, 357 clones were sequenced and analyzed by BLAST and RIKEN program. Sequences of 330 clones significantly matched database entries while 27 clones were novel. Forty-two and 47 different genes were identified as differentially expressed in day 1 and day 5 ovaries, respectively, while 7 genes were expressed in both stages of ovaries. Day 5-subtracted library included several genes known as markers far growing follicles, such as ZP2, MATER, and fetuin. Among the genes with assigned functions, 23.8% was associated with cell cycle/apoptosis regulation, 7.1% with cellular structure, 11.9% with metabolism, 26.2% with signal transduction, and 31.0% with gene/protein expression in day 1; while 10.6%, 17.0%, 23.5%, 25.5%, and 23.4% in day 5, respectively. Genes such as GDF-8, Lats2, Septin2, and Weel were the highly expressed genes in PMF, while HSP84, Laminin2, MATER, MTi7, PTP, and Wrn were highly expressed genes in PRIF. We have successfully discovered list of genes expressed in day 1 and day 5 ovaries and confirmed that some of them are differentially expressed in PMF and/or PRIF. Gene expression profile from the present study would provide insight for the future study on the mechanism(s) involved in primordial-primary follicular transition. This work was Supported by Korean Health 21 RND Project, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Korea (01-PJ10-PG6-01GN13-0002).

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.219-225
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• 2000

The spinel structured $LiMn_2O_4$was obtained by two consecutive heat treatment on xerogel; the first heat treatment was at $150^{\circ}C$ and the second at $350^{\circ}C$ was obtained by sol-gel process using an aqueous solution of lithium hydroxide and manganese acetate. The synthesized $LiMn_2O_4$ by the sol-gel process showed a discharge capacity of 88~56 mAh/g after 15 cycles in Li/lM $LiClO_4$(in PC)/$LiMn_2O_4$at a current density of 0.25 mA/$\textrm{cm}^2$ and the voltage ranged 3.5 V to 4.3 V. For the second heat treatment above $350^{\circ}C$, $Mn_2O_3$was formed as a by-product during the synthesis of $LiMn_2O_4$. The heat treatment at $500^{\circ}C$, for example, showed a lower discharge capacity 81~47 mAh/g, after the 15 charge/discharge cycles. The lower capacity was due to the increment of $Mn^{3+}$ ion and this phenomenon was in agreement with the Jahn-Teller distortion.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.48 no.10
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• pp.72-81
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• 2011

In this paper, we proposed and designed a novel floating point converter which supports single and double precisions of IEEE754 standard. The proposed convertor supports conversions between floating point number single/double precision and signed fixed point number(32bits/64bits) as well as conversions between signed integer(32bits/64bits) and floating point number single/double precision and conversions between floating point number single and double precisions. We defined a new internal format to convert various input types into one type so that overflow checking could be conducted easily according to range of output types. The internal format is similar to the extended format of floating point double precision defined in IEEE754 2008 standard. This standard specifies that minimum exponent bit-width of the extended format of floating point double precision is 15bits, but 11bits are enough to implement the proposed converting unit. Also, we optimized rounding stage of the convertor unit so that we could make it possible to operate rounding and represent correct negative numbers using an incrementer instead an adder. We designed single cycle data path and 5 cycles data path. After describing the HDL model for two data paths of the convertor, we synthesized them with TSMC 180nm technology library using Synopsys design compiler. Cell area of synthesis result occupies 12,886 gates(2 input NAND gate), and maximum operating frequency is 411MHz.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.33 no.10
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• pp.1683-1690
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• 2020

Objective: The rapid and reliable detection of the African swine fever virus (ASFV) plays an important role in emergency control and preventive measures of ASF. Some methods have been recommended by FAO/OIE to detect ASFV in clinical samples, including realtime polymerase chain reaction (PCR). However, mismatches in primer and probe binding regions may cause a false-negative result. Here, a slight modification in probe sequence has been conducted to improve the qualification of real-time PCR based on World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) protocol for accurate detection of ASFV in field samples in Vietnam. Methods: Seven positive confirmed samples (four samples have no mismatch, and three samples contained one mutation in probe binding sites) were used to establish novel real-time PCR with slightly modified probe (Y = C or T) in comparison with original probe recommended by OIE. Results: Both real-time PCRs using the OIE-recommended probe and novel modified probe can detect ASFV in clinical samples without mismatch in probe binding site. A high correlation of cycle quantification (Cq) values was observed in which Cq values obtained from both probes arranged from 22 to 25, suggesting that modified probe sequence does not impede the qualification of real-time PCR to detect ASFV in clinical samples. However, the samples with one mutation in probe binding sites were ASFV negative with OIE recommended probe but positive with our modified probe (Cq value ranked between 33.12-35.78). Conclusion: We demonstrated for the first time that a mismatch in probe binding regions caused a false negative result by OIE recommended real-time PCR, and a slightly modified probe is required to enhance the sensitivity and obtain an ASF accurate diagnosis in field samples in Vietnam.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.33 no.12
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• pp.2021-2030
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• 2020

Objective: Quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) has been extensively used in the field of mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) research to elucidate their characteristics and clinical potential by normalization of target genes against reference genes (RGs), which are believed to be stably expressed irrespective of various experimental conditions. However, the expression of RGs is also variable depending on the experimental conditions, which may lead to false or contradictory conclusions upon normalization. Due to the current lack of information for a clear list of stable RGs in bovine MSCs, we conducted this study to identify suitable RGs in bovine MSCs. Methods: The cycle threshold values of ten traditionally used RGs (18S ribosomal RNA [18S], beta-2-microglobulin [B2M], H2A histone family, member Z [H2A], peptidylprolyl isomerase A [PPIA], ribosomal protein 4 [RPL4], succinate dehydrogenase complex, subunit A [SDHA], beta actin [ACTB], glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase [GAPDH], TATA box binding protein [TBP], and hypoxanthine phosphoribosyltrasnfrase1 [HPRT1]) in bovine bone marrow-derived MSCs (bBMMSCs) were validated for their stabilities using three types of RG evaluation algorithms (geNorm, Normfinder, and Bestkeeper). The effect of validated RGs was then verified by normalization of lineage-specific genes (fatty acid binding protein 4 [FABP4] and osteonectin [ON]) expressions during differentiations of bBMMSCs or POU class 5 homeobox 1 (OCT4) expression between bBMMSCs and dermal skins. Results: Based on the results obtained for the three most stable RGs from geNorm (TBP, RPL4, and H2A), Normfinder (TBP, RPL4, and SDHA), and Bestkeeper (TBP, RPL4, and SDHA), it was comprehensively determined that TBP and RPL4 were the most stable RGs in bBMMSCs. However, traditional RGs were suggested to be the least stable (18S) or moderately stable (GAPDH and ACTB) in bBMMSCs. Normalization of FABP4 or ON against TBP, RPL4, and 18S presented significant differences during differentiation of bBMMSCs. However, although significantly low expression of OCT4 was detected in dermal skins compared to that in bBMMSCs when TBP and RPL4 were used in normalization, normalization against 18S exhibited no significance. Conclusion: This study proposes that TBP and RPL4 were suitable as stable RGs for qPCR study in bovine MSCs.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.263-272
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• 2007

Nebulin is a giant actin binding protein (600-900 kDa) which is specific to skeletal muscle. This protein is known to regulate thin filaments length in sarcomere as a molecular template. The C-terminus of nebulin is located in the Z-disc of muscle sarcomere and is bound to other proteins such like myopalladin, titin, archvillin, and desmin. The N-terminus of nebulin binds to tropomodulin at the pointed ends of the thin filaments. In recent research, nebulin not only found in brain but also expressed in heart, stomach, and liver. So, the roles of nebulin in non-muscle tissue have been studied. However, lack of information or studies on nebulin binding proteins and nebulin function in brain are available so far. Therefore, the current study have investigated a novel binding partner of Nebulin C-terminus by using yeast two-hybrid screening with human brain cDNA library. Nebulin C-terminus, containing simple repeats, serine rich and SH3 domain, interacts with osteonectin C-terminal region. The specific interaction of nebulin and osteonectin were confirmed in vitro by using GST pull-down assay and reconfirmed in vivo by using transfected COS-7 cells with EGFP-tagged nebulin and DsRed-tagged osteonectin. Consequently, this study identified SH3 domain in nebulin C-terminus specifically binds to extracellular Ca-binding (EeC domain in osteonectin. Also, nebulin C-terminus fusion protein colocalized with osteonectin EC domain fusion protein in transfected COS-7 cells. The current study found the interaction between nebulin and osteonectin in human brain for the first time and suggested the nebulin in brain may be associated with osteonectin, as a regulator of cell cycle progression and mitosis.