• Molecules and Cells
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.76-82
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• 2007

By combining in situ hybridization (ISH) and immunocytochemistry (IC), microscopic topological localization of mRNAs and proteins can be determined. Although this technique can be applied to a variety of tissues, it is particularly important for use on neuronal cells which are morphologically complex and in which specific mRNAs and proteins are located in distinct subcellular domains such as dendrites and dendritic spines. One common technical problem for combined ISH and IC is that the signal for immunocytochemical localization of proteins often becomes much weaker after conducting ISH. In this manuscript, we report a simplified but robust protocol that allows immunocytochemical localization of proteins after ISH. In this protocol, we fix cultured cortical or hippocampal neurons with 4% paraformaldehyde (PFA), rinse briefly in PBS, and then further fix the cells with $-20^{\circ}C$ methanol. Our method has several major advantages over previously described ones in that (1) it is simple, as it is just consecutive routine fixation procedures, (2) it does not require any special alteration to the fixation procedures such as changes in salt concentration, and (3) it can be used with antibodies that are compatible with either methanol (MeOH-) or PFA-fixed target proteins. To our best knowledge, we are the first to employ this fixation method for fluorescence ISH + IC.

• Journal of Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.67-70
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• 2012

Plant MYB transcription factors regulate secondary metabolism, cellular morphogenesis, and plant hormone signaling pathway. MYB proteins in plants consist of two repeats of 50 amino acid residues, which are referred to as R2R3 and they interact with WD40 or basic helix loop helix (bHLH) proteins. Yeast two hybrid assay was determined whether rice MYB protein interacts with either OsTTG1, which contains a WD40 domain, or with OsGL3, which contains a bHLH domain. Among 30 OsMYB proteins, three interacted with OsTTG1 and five interacted with OsGL3. A series of MYB mutants were created to determine the MYB domain important for the interaction with OsTTG1 or OsGL3. By using the yeast two hybrid assay, we found that the R3 motif of OsMYB10 and the R2 motif of OsMYB16 were required for interaction with OsTTG1 and OsGL3 proteins, respectively.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.323-331
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• 2008

Plants are continually exposed to a variety of potentially pathogenic microbes, and the interactions between plants and pathogenic invaders determine the outcome, disease or disease resistance. To defend themselves, plants have developed a sophisticated immune system. Unlike animals, however, they do not have specialized immune cells and, thus all plant cells appear to have the innate ability to recognize pathogens and turn on an appropriate defense response. Using genetic, genomic and biochemical methods, tremendous advances have been made in understanding how plants recognize pathogens and mount effective defenses. The primary immune response is induced by microbe-associated molecular patterns (MAMPs). MAMP receptors recognize the presence of probable pathogens and evoke defense. In the co-evolution of plant-microbe interactions, pathogens gained the ability to make and deliver effector proteins to suppress MAMP-induced defense responses. In response to effector proteins, plants acquired R-proteins to directly or indirectly monitor the presence of effector proteins and activate an effective defense response. In this review we will describe and discuss the plant immune responses induced by two types of elicitors, PAMPs and effector proteins.

• 한국환경농학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.07a
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• pp.196-204
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• 2011

Abiotic stress is the primary cause of crop loss worldwide, reducing average yields for most major crop plants by more than 50%. In addition, future agricultural production and management will encounter multifaceted challenges from global climate change. Therefore, it is necessary to study the molecular response of crop plants to the stresses in order to develop appropriate strategies to sustain food production under adverse environmental conditions. We carried out a large scale proteomic analysis of soybean plants in response to various abiotic stresses, including drought, salinity, waterlogging and their interactions. Proteins were analyzed by two dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis followed by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time of flight (MALDI-TOF) mass spectrometry. The identified proteins are involved in a wide range of cellular functions. In addition to the well known stress-associated proteins, we identified several novel proteins, which were not reported before. In many cases our proteomic data bridges the gap between mRNA and metabolite data. Our studie provides new insights into identification of abiotic stress responsive proteins in soybean, and demonstrates the advantages of proteomic analysis in dissecting metabolic and regulatory networks.

• International Journal of Industrial Entomology and Biomaterials
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.90-97
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• 2016

The major structural proteins of porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) are derived from ORFs 4, 5, and 6. They have been considered very important to arouse the humoral and cellular immune responses against PRRSV infection and proposed to be the excellent candidate proteins in the design of PRRS bioengineering vaccine. However, the PRRSV structural proteins are produced in low levels in the infected cells because it forms insoluble protein and possesses several transmembrane regions. To overcome this problem, we fused the ORF4, ORF5, and ORF6 with SUMO (small ubiquitin-related modifier). The resulting fusion protein SUMO-ORF4, -ORF5, and -ORF6 were highly expressed in Bm5 cells. The level of protein expression using the Bombyx mori larvae was higher than that using Bm5 cells. In addition, fusion to SUMOstar, which is not processed by native SUMO proteases, significantly enhanced protein expression levels compared to SUMO fusion. This study demonstrated that SUMO or SUMOstar, when fused with PRRSV structural proteins, was able to promote its soluble expression. This may be a better method to produce PRRSV structural proteins for vaccine development.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.315-321
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• 2018

Molecular and functional characterization of proteins and their levels is of great interest in understanding the mechanism of diverse cellular processes. In this study, we report on the convenient Escherichia coli-based protein expression system that allows recombinant of soluble proteins expression and cytosolic domain of membrane-localised kinases, followed by the detection of autophosphorylation activity in protein kinases. This approach is applied to regulatory proteins of Arabidopsis thaliana, including 14-3-3, calmodulin, calcium-dependent protein kinase, TERMINAL FLOWER 1(TFL1), FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT), receptor-like cytoplasmic kinase and cytoplasmic domain of leucine-rich repeat-receptor like kinase proteins. Our Western blot analysis which uses phospho-specific antibodies showed that five putative LRR-RLKs and two putative RLCKs have autophosphorylation activity in vitro on threonine and/or tyrosine residue(s), suggesting their potential role in signal transduction pathways. Our findings were also discussed in the broader context of recombinant expression and biochemical analysis of soluble and membrane-localised receptor kinases in microbial systems.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.41.1-41.9
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• 2022

The pathogen Gallibacterium anatis has caused heavy economic losses for commercial poultry farms around the world. However, despite its importance, the functions of its hypothetical proteins (HPs) have been poorly characterized. The present study analyzed the functions and structures of HPs obtained from Gallibacterium anatis (NCTC11413) using various bioinformatics tools. Initially, all the functions of HPs were predicted using the VICMpred tool, and the physicochemical properties of the identified virulence proteins were then analyzed using Expasy's ProtParam server. A virulence protein (WP_013745346.1) that can act as a potential drug target was further analyzed for its secondary structure, followed by homology modeling and three-dimensional (3D) structure determination using the Swiss-Model and Phyre2 servers. The quality assessment and validation of the 3D model were conducted using ERRAT, Verify3D, and PROCHECK programs. The functional and phylogenetic analysis was conducted using ProFunc, STRING, KEGG servers, and MEGA software. The bioinformatics analysis revealed 201 HPs related to cellular processes (n = 119), metabolism (n = 61), virulence (n = 11), and information/storage molecules (n = 10). Among the virulence proteins, three were detected as drug targets and six as vaccine targets. The characterized virulence protein WP_013745346.1 is proven to be stable, a drug target, and an enzyme related to the citrate cycle in the present pathogen. This enzyme was also found to facilitate other metabolic pathways, the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites, and the biosynthesis of amino acids.

• Interdisciplinary Bio Central
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.1.1-1.7
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• 2012

Background: The F-box proteins represent one of the largest families of proteins in eukaryotes. Apart from being a component of the ubiquitin (Ub)/26 S proteasome pathways, their regulatory roles in other cellular and developmental pathways have also been reported. One interesting feature of the genes encoding the proteins of this particular family is their variable selection patterns across different lineages. This resulted in the presence of lineage specific F-box proteins across different species. Findings: In this study, 48 non-redundant F-box proteins in E. siliculosus have been identified by a homology based approach and classified into three classes based on their variable C-terminal domains. A greater number of the F-box proteins have domains similar to the ones identified in other species. On the other hand, when the proteins having unknown or no C-terminal domain (as predicted by InterProScan) were analyzed, it was found that some of them have the polyglutamine repeats. To gain evolutionary insights on the genes encoding the F-box proteins, their selection patterns were analyzed and a strong positive selection was observed which indicated the adaptation potential of the members of this family. Moreover, four lineage specific F-box genes were found in E. siliculosus with no identified homolog in any other species. Conclusions: This study describes a genome wide in silico analysis of the F-box proteins in E. siliculosus which sheds light on their evolutionary patterns. The results presented in this study provide a strong foundation to select candidate sequences for future functional analysis.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Crop Science Conference
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• 2017.06a
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• pp.125-125
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• 2017

The roots of Platycodon grandiflorum are commonly used for treating bronchitis, asthma, tuberculosis, diabetes, and other inflammatory diseases. Since the molecular mechanism underlying the roots of the plant is unclear. Therefore, the present study was conducted to profile proteins from liquid cultured tetraploid roots of Platycodon grandi orum fl using high throughput proteome approach. Two-dimensional gels stained with CBB, a total of 659 differentially expressed proteins were identified from the liquid medium cultured tetraploid roots of which 32 proteins spots (${\geq}1.5-fold$) were sorted for mass spectrometry analysis. Out of these 32 proteins, a total of 15 proteins were up-regulated such as Serine carboxypeptidase-like 27, Transcription factor bHLH150, 60 kDa jasmonate-induced protein, Cytosolic Fe-S cluster assembly factor NBP35, Regulatory associated protein of TOR 2 and a total of 17 proteins were down-regulated such as Protein G1-like2, Phenylalanine ammonia-lyase, Fructokinase-2, Trihelix transcription factor GT-3a, Guanine nucleotide-binding protein alpha-1 subunit. However, the frequency distribution of identified proteins was carried out within functional categories based on molecular functions, cellular components, and biological processes. Functional categorization revealed that the most of the identified proteins from the explants were mainly associated with the nucleic acid binding, oxidoreductase, transferase activity, protein binding and hydrolase activity. In addition, the proteomic feedback of tetraploid roots of P. grandiflorum may potentially be used to understand the characteristics of proteins and their functions.

• BMB Reports
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.103-109
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• 2010

Modification of proteins by the reversible covalent addition of the small ubiquitin like modifier (SUMO) protein has important consequences affecting target protein stability, sub-cellular localization, and protein-protein interactions. SUMOylation involves a cascade of enzymatic reactions, which resembles the process of ubiquitination. In this study, we characterized the SUMOylation system from an important crop plant, rice, and show that it responds to cold, salt and ABA stress conditions on a protein level via the accumulation of SUMOylated proteins. We also characterized the transcriptional regulation of individual SUMOylation cascade components during stress and development. During stress conditions, majority of the SUMO cascade components are transcriptionally down regulated. SUMO conjugate proteins and SUMO cascade component transcripts accumulated differentially in various tissues during plant development with highest levels in reproductive tissues. Taken together, these data suggest a role for SUMOylation in rice development and stress responses.