• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.184-192
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• 2014

${\beta}$-lapachone is a naturally occurring quinone that selectively induces apoptotic cell death in a variety of human cancer cells in vitro and in vivo; however, its mechanism of action needs to be further elaborated. In this study, we investigated the effects of ${\beta}$-lapachone on the induction of apoptosis in human gastric carcinoma AGS cells. ${\beta}$-lapachone significantly inhibited cellular proliferation, and some typical apoptotic characteristics such as chromatin condensation and an increase in the population of sub-G1 hypodiploid cells were observed in ${\beta}$-lapachone-treated AGS cells. Treatment with ${\beta}$-lapachone caused mitochondrial transmembrane potential dissipation, stimulated the mitochondria-mediated intrinsic apoptotic pathway, as indicated by caspase-9 activation, cytochrome c release, Bcl-2 downregulation and Bax upregulation, as well as death receptor-mediated extrinsic apoptotic pathway, as indicated by activation of caspase-8 and truncation of Bid. This process was accompanied by activation of caspase-3 and concomitant with cleavage of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase. The general caspase inhibitor, z-VAD-fmk, significantly abolished ${\beta}$-lapachone-induced cell death and inhibited growth. Further analysis demonstrated that the induction of apoptosis by ${\beta}$-lapachone was accompanied by inactivation of the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/Akt signaling pathway. The PI3K inhibitor LY29004 significantly increased ${\beta}$-lapachone-induced apoptosis and growth inhibition. Taken together, these findings indicate that the apoptotic activity of ${\beta}$-lapachone is probably regulated by a caspase-dependent cascade through activation of both intrinsic and extrinsic signaling pathways, and that inhibition of the PI3K/Akt signaling may contribute to ${\beta}$-lapachone-mediated AGS cell growth inhibition and apoptosis induction.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.286-291
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• 1993

The $Km^{r}$ gene and plasmid of natural isolate and genetically modified microorganisms (GMM) rearranged by conjugation in water environments were comparatively analyzed by agarose gel electrophoresis and Southern analysis. The transfer rates of the $Km^{r}$ gene from GMM strains were generally 100 times higher than thosc of natural iso]ate(DKI) under laboratory cnvironments, but their transfer rate was not much different in Moosimcheon River water. The conjugants obtained in LB(Luria-Bertani broth) and FW(filtered river water) water under laboratory conditions showed same number of the plasmids. but the sizes of the plasmids were changed. The $Km^{r}$ gene in the conjugants was found in the same position as the pDKJO] $Km^{r}$ plasmid. In case of the GMM strains as donor. the large plasmids of 180 kb appeared in conjugants obtained in LB and FW water. Especially, the $Km^{r}$ gene in the donor of DKC600 was found to be inserted into chromosome of the conjugant obtained in FW water. However. in the conjugants obtained from DKl and DKB 701 in Moosimcheon River water, the plasmids were rearranged by 4 and 8. respectively, and all of them showed hybridization by the $Km^{r}$ probe. But the small plasmids of the recipient disappeared in the conjugant from DKC600 as donor, and the rearranged plasm ids and chromosome in the conjugants were observed to be hybridized with the $Km^{r}$ probe. Therefore, rearrangement of $Km^{r}$ gene and plasmids by conjugation was found to be afTected diversely by cellular characteristics as well as by environmental factors.

• Journal of KIISE:Computing Practices and Letters
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.33-46
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• 2003

A Home Location Register(HLR) database system manages each subscriber's location information, which continuously changes in a cellular network. For this purpose, the HLR database system provides table management, index management, and backup management facilities. In this thesis, we propose using a two-level index method for the mobile directory number(MDN) as a suitable method and a chained bucket hashing method for the electronic serial number(ESN). Both the MDN and the ESN are used as keys in the HLR database system. We also propose an efficient backup method that takes into account the characteristics of HLR database transactions. The retrieval speed and the memory usage of the two-level index method are better than those of the R-tree index method. The insertion and deletion overhead of the chained bucket hashing method is less than that of the modified linear hashing method. In the proposed backup method, we use two kinds of dirty flags in order to solve the performance degradation problem caused by frequent registration-location operations. For a million subscribers, proposed techniques support reduction of memory size(more than 62%), directory operations (2500,000 times), and backup operations(more than 80%) compared with current techniques.

• Journal of Dairy Science and Biotechnology
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.45-53
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• 2012

Lactobacillus acidophilus isolated from the feces of a 7-day-old breast-fed infant was characterized to examine the scope of its commercial use. Forty-three Lactobacillus strains, which could grow at pH 5.5, were isolated. From these Lactobacillus isolates, 14 Lactobacillus strains were selected, which demonstrated more than 80% viability and homofermentative lactic fermentation. Finally, 9 L. acidophilus strains (NB 201~NB 209) were identified as candidate strains based upon biochemical properties, carbohydrate utilization, and cellular fatty acid composition. L. acidophilus isolates demonstrated a survival rate of more than 80% when exposed to pH 2.5 for 2 h. In particular, L. acidophilus NB 204 showed a strong acid tolerance, with a 71% survival rate even at pH 2.0. L. acidophilus isolates also manifested high bile acid tolerance; more than 87% of the cells survived on agar containing 1% bile extract, except for L. acidophilus NB 206, which showed a 73% survival rate. All L. acidophilus isolates were confirmed to have proteolytic activity; L. acidophilus NB 204 and NB 209 yielded higher levels of TCA-soluble peptides and free amino acids. The ${\beta}$-galactosidase activity of the L. acidophilus isolates was in the range of 1.97~2.45 units/mL.

• Journal of KIISE:Information Networking
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.333-342
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• 2006

The cdma2000 lxEV - DO mobile communication system provides broadcast and multicast services (BCMCS) to meet an increasing demand from multimedia data services. The servicing of video streams over a BCMCS network must, however, face a challenge from the unreliable and error-prone nature of the radio channel. The BCMCS network uses Reed-Solomon coding integrated with the MAC protocol for error recovery. We analyze this coding technique and show that it is not effective in the case of slowly moving mobiles. To improve the playback quality of an MPEG-4 FGS video stream, we propose the Hybrid error recovery scheme, which combines Reed-Solomon with ARQ, using slots which are saved by reducing the Reed-Solomon coding overhead. The target packets to be retransmitted are prioritized by a utility function to reduce the packet error rate in the application layer within a fixed retransmission budget. This is achieved by considering of the map of the error control block at each mobile node. The proposed Hybrid error recovery scheme also uses the characteristics of MPEG-4 FGS (fine granularity scalability) to improve the video quality even when conditions are adverse: slow-moving nodes and a high error rate in the physical channel.

• Food Science and Preservation
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.8-16
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• 2005

To develop natural antimicrobial agents for extending the self-life of Kimchi, the effect of botanical antimicrobial agent-citrus products(BAAC) on microorganisms related to Kimchi spoilage was investigated. The inhibitory effect of BAAC on microorganisms related to Kimchi spoilage was increased according to the concentration of BAAC. Antimicrobial activities of BAAC against microoiganisms related to Kimchi spoilage were remarkably high. The effect of BAAC on the cellular membrane function of microorganisms showed the perturbation of cells in the presence of BAAC. Direct isualization of microbial cells by using both transmission md scanning electron microscope showed microbial cell membrane was destroyed by treating with BAAC. It could be confirmed that BAAC completely inhibit the growth of the test strains. The pH of BAAC-added Kimchi was a little higher than that of the control through the fermentation period. Titratable acidify, vitamin C and viable cells in BAAC-added Kimchi were changed more slowly than those in the control. Sensory evaluation did not show any significant difference between $0.01\%$ BAAC-added Kimchi and the control that showed the best palatabilities during fermentation.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.379-384
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• 2010

We isolated microorganisms presenting high enzymatic activities for amylase, cellulase, protease, lipase or fibrinolysis from Korean traditional soybean sauce and paste. Then, the physiological properties and 16S rRNA sequences of isolated microorganisms were analyzed. All of the isolated 13 strains possessing high extra cellular enzyme activities have higher amylase and cellulase activities than Bacillus subtilis KACC 10114. All the selected strains have protease activities except for D2-14. Except D8-8 and K4-1, other strains have lipase activity. D2-7, D8-8 and K4-1 strains have higher fibrinolytic activities than others, while D8-2 strain has no activity. Most of the selected strains showed antibacterial activity even in gram positive and gram negative bacteria and yeast. Gene sequence analysis of 16S rRNA from isolated strains revealed that all the selected strains were member of Bacillus species.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.43-50
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• 2017

A xylan-degrading bacterium (strain WJ-1) was isolated from soil collected from Jeju Island, Republic of Korea. Strain WJ-1 was characterized as a gram-positive, aerobic, and spore-forming bacterium. The predominant fatty acid in this bacterium was anteiso-$C_{15:0}$ (42.99%). A similarity search based on 16S rRNA gene sequences suggested that the strain belonged to the genus Streptomyces. Further, strain WJ-1 shared the highest sequence similarity with the type strains Streptomyces spinoveruucosus NBRC 14228, S. minutiscleroticus NBRC 13000, and S. glaucescens NBRC 12774. Together, they formed a coherent cluster in a phylogenetic tree based on the neighbor-joining algorithm. The DNA G+C content of strain WJ-1 was 74.7 mol%. The level of DNA-DNA relatedness between strain WJ-1 and the closest related species S. glaucescens NBRC 12774 was 85.7%. DNA-DNA hybridization, 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity, and the phenotypic and chemotaxonomic characteristics suggest that strain WJ-1 constitutes a novel subspecies of S. glaucescens. Thus, the strain was designated as S. glaucescens subsp. WJ-1 (Korean Agricultural Culture Collection [KACC] accession number 92086). Additionally, strain WJ-1 secreted thermostable endo-type xylanases that converted xylan to xylooligosaccharides such as xylotriose and xylotetraose. The enzymes exhibited optimal activity at pH 7.0 and $55^{\circ}C$.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Bioinformatics Conference
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• 2006.02a
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• pp.83-89
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• 2006

Cellular functions are carried out by a concerted action of biochemical pathways whose components have genetic interactions. Abnormalities in the activity of the genes that constitute or modulate these pathways frequently have oncogenic implications. Therefore, identifying the upstream regulatory genes for major biochemical pathways and defining their roles in carcinogenesis can have important consequences in establishing an effective target-oriented antitumor strategy We have analyzed the gene expression profiles of human liver cancer samples using cDNA microarray chips enriched in liver and/or stomach-expressed cDNA elements, and identified groups of genes that can tell tumors from non-tumors or normal liver, or classify tumors according to clinical parameters such as tumor grade, age, and inflammation grade. We also set up a high-throughput cell-based assay system (cell chip) that can monitor the activity of major biochemical pathways through a reporter assay. Then, we applied the cell chip platform for the analysis of the HCC-associated genes discovered from transcriptome profiling, and found a number of cancer marker genes having a potential of modulating the activity of cancer-related biochemical pathways such as E2F, TCF, p53, Stat, Smad, AP-1, c-Myc, HIF and NF-kB. Some of these marker genes were previously blown to modulate these pathways, while most of the others not. Upon a fast-track phenotype analysis, a subset of the genes showed increased colony forming abilities in soft agar and altered cell morphology or adherence characteristics in the presence of purified matrix proteins. We are currently analyzing these selected marker genes in more detail for their effects on various biological Processes and for Possible clinical roles in liver cancer development.

• The korean journal of orthodontics
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• v.34 no.2 s.103
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• pp.143-152
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• 2004

It has not been elucidated whether the initiation of condylar development of the mandible is related with the periosteum of the mandible, or if it derives from a separate programmed blastema not related with the mandible. Also, although the mandibular condylar cartilage is known to promote growth, few studies have dealt with molecular-biologic mechanisms such as the expression of specific genes according to the differentiation of the mandibular condyle. To elucidate the unique cellular characteristics, development, and differentiation process of the mandibular condyle, an examination of expressions of genes characteristic of cartilage and bone were carried out using RT-PCR and mRNA in situ hybridization. 1. Type? collagen mRNA was detected with type II collagen mRNA in the differentiation and growth process of the cartilage of the mandibular condyle. TypeII collagen mRNA was demonstrated in the whole resting md upper part of the poliferative zone, whereas type II collagen mRNA was observed in the resting, proliferative and upper hypertrophic cartilage zone of the mandibular condyle. 2. The condylar cartilage rapidly increased in size due to the accumulation of hypertrophic chondrocytes as characterized by the expression of type II collagen mRNA during postnatal development. 3. BMP-4 mRNA was present in the anlage of the future condylar process and also in the ossifying mandibular body. 4. IHH mRNA was limited exclusively to the lower part of the proliferative zone and the upper part of the hypertrophic cartilage zone during condylar development. These findings were different from those in the growth-plate cartilage of the long bone, indicating a characteristic feature of the differentiation of the chondrocytes in the condylar cartilage present in prenatal and postnatal development. Furthermore, it was also suggested that chondroblasts of condylar cartilage rapidly differentiate into hypertrophic chondrocytes with increased functional Load force such as muscle activity and mastication.