• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.33 no.12
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• pp.4169-4172
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• 2012

To elucidate the roles of cysteine residues in rice Phi-class GST F3, in this study, all three cysteine residues were replaced with alanine by site-directed mutagenesis in order to obtain mutants C22A, C73A and C77A. Three mutant enzymes were expressed in Escherichia coli and purified to electrophoretic homogeneity by affinity chromatography on immobilized GSH. The substitutions of Cys73 and Cys77 residues in OsGSTF3 with alanine did not affect the glutathione conjugation activities, showing non-essentiality of these residues. On the other hand, the substitution of Cys22 residue with alanine resulted in approximately a 60% loss of specific activity toward ethacrynic acid. Moreover, the ${K_m}^{CDNB}$ value of the mutant C22A was approximately 2.2 fold larger than that of the wild type. From these results, the evolutionally conserved cysteine 22 residue seems to participate rather in the structural stability of the active site in OsGSTF3 by stabilizing the electrophilic substrates-binding site's conformation than in the substrate binding directly.

• Journal of Engineering Education Research
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.15-19
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• 2010

Upon request from the Tokushima Prefectural Senior High School of Science and Technology, two faculty staff members and eight students of The University of Tokushima visited the high school and set up a chemistry laboratory class for 59 students. Since the participating senior high school students were freshmen, four simple, safe and visual experiments were selected: 1) Water purification, 2) Surface modification, 3) Briggs-Rauscher reaction, and 4) Polymer synthesis and characterization. All experiments received a favorable reception as a follow-up questionnaire verified. Since the high school students enjoyed the experiments it is hoped that the results will strengthen the students' interest in chemistry. It was good opportunity for the observers; they recognized the difficulty of teaching students.

• Journal of Engineering Education Research
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.55-60
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• 2010

Chemistry laboratory class was produced for senior high school freshmen with the cooperation of university staffs, high school teachers and the university students. Although the students who will take the lab class are senior high school freshmen, we decided to prepare four experiments that are simple and have highly visible reactions or transformation. That is, 1) Water purification, 2) Surface modification, 3) Briggs-Rauscher reaction, and 4) Polymer synthesis and characterization. After the safety guideline and experiment instructions by the faculty staffs, two teaching assistants (TAs) supervised each experiment. Since taking a direct part in it will provide stronger impact than only being one who is just watching the experiment, all experiments contained some process that the high school students must handle the reagents, tools or the equipment, by themselves. Although, the operation performed by the students was limited to a series of simple actions, the various unique phenomena presented by the experiments impressed the students. The lab class was fruitful not only for high school students, but also good for university students. The lab class provided good opportunity for them to improve the abilities to teach and guide someone.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.34 no.9
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• pp.2671-2674
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• 2013

To elucidate the role of the evolutionarily conserved Tyr8 residue in rice Phi-class GSTF3, this amino acid was replaced with alanine and phenylalanine by site-directed mutagenesis, respectively. The replacement of Tyr8 with Ala significantly affected the catalytic activity and the kinetic parameters, whereas the substitutions of Tyr8 with Phe had almost no effect. The Y8A mutant resulted in approximately 90-100% decrease of the specific activity. Moreover, the Y8A mutant resulted approximately in 2-fold increase of $K_m$, approximately 60-80% decrease of $k_{cat}$, and approximately 6.5-fold decrease in $k_{cat}/K_m$. From the pH/log $k_{cat}/K_m$ plot, $pK_a$ values of the GSH in the wild-type enzyme-GSH complex, Y8A-GSH complex and Y8F-GSH complex were estimated to be approximately 6.8, 8.5 and 6.9, respectively. From these results, we suggest that the evolutionarily conserved Tyr8 residue in OsGSTF3 seems to influence the structural stability of the active site of OsGSTF3 rather than directly its catalytic activity.

• YAKHAK HOEJI
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.302-306
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• 1998

In the previous study we described the antitumor activity of GLB, a protein-polysaccharide fraction of the growing tips of Ganoderma lucidum, against sarcoma 180 solid tu mor in ICR mice. In this study we investigated the stimulatory activity of GLB on macrophages. When analyzed using a flow cytometer, GLB ($100{\mu}g/ml$) was found to increase the phagocytic activity of the BALB/c mouse peritoneal macrophages as well as chicken macrophage BM2CL cells against FITC-labeled C.albicans by 55.2% and 21.2%, respectively. GLB also increased the spreading and the expression of MHC class II molecules of BM2CL cells as well as the mouse peritoneal macrophages. From these results, it is clear that GLB is a strong stimulator to the macrophages.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.66 no.3
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• pp.218-227
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to analyze the opinions of students by using the text mining to the good points and improvements among the descriptive course evaluation written by the students who participated in the university chemistry laboratory class, and to derive the improvement for the class. We analyzed the frequency of occurrence, co-occurrence and network of key words. As a result of the study, in the network of good points in the class, the most frequent mentions were made between class and professor, along with explanation, understanding, student, passion, fun, TA, experiment, help, etc. In the network of improvements in the class, the most frequent mentions were made between class and student, along with professor, content, explanation, exam, wish, experiment, understanding, difficult, thought, problem, etc. In other words, the students suggested the opinion that the contents of the class were well understood and that they felt fun and satisfied with the experimental process due to 'easy and detailed explanation' and 'TA's assistance' as good points of the class. On the other hand, the students suggested the negative opinions that the understanding and concentration in the class was decreased due to 'difficulty of content and exam', 'excessive assignments', and 'class environment' as improvements of the class.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.44-51
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• 2018

Fluoroquinolone (FQ) antibiotics are an important class of synthetic antibacterial agents. These are the most extensively used drugs for treating bacterial infections in the field of both human and veterinary medicine. Herein, the antibacterial and pharmacological properties of four fluoroquinolones: lomefloxacin, norfloxacin, ciprofloxacin, and ofloxacin have been studied. The objective of this study was to analyze the antibacterial characteristics of the different fluoroquinolones. Also, the pharmacological properties of the compounds including the Lipinski rule of five, absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion, LD50, drug likeliness, and toxicity were evaluated. We found that among all four FQ molecules, ofloxacin showed the highest antibacterial activity through in silico assays with a strong interaction (-38.52 kJ/mol) with the antibacterial target protein (topoisomerase-II DNA gyrase enzyme). The pharmacological and pharmacokinetic analysis also showed that the compounds ciprofloxacin, ofloxacin, lomefloxacin and norfloxacin have good pharmacological properties. Notably, ofloxacin was found to possess an IGC50 (concentration needed to inhibit 50% growth) value of $0.286{\mu}g/L$ against the Tetrahymena pyriformis protozoa. It also tested negative for the Ames toxicity test, showing its non-carcinogenic character.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.32 no.11
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• pp.3996-4000
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• 2011

In an attempt to find a new class of anti microbial agents, a series of thiazolidinone and their 5-arylidene derivatives containing 4-(4-methyl benzamido)-benzoyl moiety were synthesized via the reaction of benzocaine with appropriate chemical reagents. These compounds were screened for their antibacterial activity against Gram-positive bacteria (Bacillus subtilis and Bacillus thuringiensis), Gram-negative bacteria (Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa) and antifungal activity against Botrytis fabae, Fusarium oxysporan and Candida albicans. On the other hand the synthesized compounds were also screened for their anti tubercular activity. IR, $^1H$ NMR, $^{13}C$ NMR and MS spectral analyses established the structures of the newly synthesized compounds. The results revealed that some of these compounds have shown promising antimicrobial and anti tubercular activity in comparison with standard drugs.

• Mass Spectrometry Letters
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.110-114
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• 2018

Since accumulation of chemicals in deciduous teeth can occur from the second trimester of fetal development to shedding, a deciduous tooth has been considered as an attractive biomatrix for estimating individual chemical exposures recently. Therefore, detection of organic chemicals from teeth has received an increasing attention in exposomics research. Most previous studies on organic chemical analysis of teeth not only focused on a few targeted chemicals but also ignored potential contaminants from an enamel surface or a dental pulp. Recently, our group started developing a multi-class organic analysis method for deciduous teeth and tried to find a proper incubation condition of tooth materials. Our results showed that incubation with methanolic HCl provided the best performance among tested.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.31 no.7
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• pp.2003-2010
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• 2010

A new class of halobenzyloxy or alkoxy 1,2,4-triazoles and their hydrochlorides were synthesized through cyclization starting from commercially available phenylhydrazine. The structures were characterized by MS, IR and $^1H$ NMR spectra as well as elemental analyses. All the synthesized compounds were screened for their antibacterial activities in vitro against Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC29213), methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (N315), Bacillus subtilis, Escherichia coli (ATCC25922), Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Shigella dysenteriae, Eberthella typhosa, and antifungal activities against Candida albicans (ATCC76615), Aspergillus fumigatus by broth microdilution assay method. The results of preliminary bioassay indicated that 3-(2,4-difluorobenzyloxy)-1-phenyl-1H-1,2,4-triazole hydrochloride exhibited the best inhibitory activity with an MIC value of 56.25 ${\mu}M$ against P. aeruginosa superior to Chloramphenicol, and showed comparable activity with Chloramphenicol against E. coli (ATCC25922).