• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.594-598
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• 2005

Treatment of a solution of $CuCl_2$ in dimethyl phosphate (DMP) with DMSO under nitrogen atmosphere afforded to a light blue fluorescence powder. Slow evaporation of $H_2O$-DMSO solution of this powder resulted in blue-sky crystals of a new polymeric Cu(II) complex, with a unit cell composed of $Cu_2(DMP)_4$(DMSO), (1). The crystal and molecular structure of the complex acquired crystallographically. Compound (1) crystallizes in the monoclinic space group $P2_1$/n with a = 12.8920(11) $\AA$, b = 13.1966(11) $\AA$, c = 14.7926(13) $\AA$, $\alpha$ = 90$^{\circ}$, $\beta$ = 98.943(2)$^{\circ}$, $\gamma$ = 90$^{\circ}$, V= 2486.1(4) ${\AA}^3$, and Z = 4. A square pyramidal environment for the metal center was established by coordination of oxygen atoms of four bridging DMP ligands in the basal positions and binding a tri-centered oxygen atom of DMSO in the apical disposition of Cu(II). The sixth position was also affected by a weak interaction with the sulfur atom of another DMSO. The phosphorous atom in the bridging DMP was arranged in a deformed tetrahedron with (gg) conformation for methyl esters with $C_{2v}$ symmetry.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.31 no.8
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• pp.2201-2206
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• 2010

To improve the separation property and stability of metal chelate Cu(II) column, three new kinds of multidentate aminocarboxy silica columns with cation-exchange properties were synthesized using glutamic acid (Glu), glutamic acidbromoacetic acid (Glu-BAA), glutamic acid-bromosuccinic acid (Glu-BSUA) as ligands and silica gel as matrix. The standard proteins were separated with prepared chromatographic columns. The stationary phases exhibited the metal chelate property after fixing copper ion (II) on the synthesized multidentate ligand silica columns. The binding capacity of immobilized metal ion was related with the dentate number of multidentate ligands. Chromatographic behavior of proteins and the leakage of immobilized metal ion on multidentate chelate Cu(II) columns were affected by the dentate number of multidentate ligands and competitive elution system directly. The results showed that quinquedentate Glu-BSUA-Cu(II) column exhibited better chromatographic property and stability as compared with tridentate Glu-Cu(II) column, tetradentate Glu-BAA-Cu(II) column and commonly used IDA-Cu(II) column.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.127-136
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• 2015

Cupredoxin-like proteins are mainly copper-binding proteins that conserve a typical rigid Greek-key arrangement consisting of an eight-stranded β-sandwich, even though they share as little as 10-15% sequence similarity. The electron transport function of the Cupredoxins is critical for respiration and photosynthesis, and the proteins have therapeutic potential. Despite their crucial biological functions, the identification of the distant Cupredoxin homologs has been a difficult task due to their low sequence identity. In this study, the overlapped conserved residue (OCR) fingerprint for the Cupredoxin superfamily, which consists of conserved residues in three aspects (i.e., the sequence, structure, and intramolecular interaction), was used to detect the novel Cupredoxin homologs in the NCBI non-redundant protein sequence database. The OCR fingerprint could identify 54 potential Cupredoxin sequences, which were validated by scanning them against the conserved Cupredoxin motif near the Cu-binding site. This study also attempted to model the 3D structures and to predict the functions of the identified potential Cupredoxins. This study suggests that the OCR-based approach can be used efficiently to detect novel homologous proteins with low sequence identity, such as Cupredoxins.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.476-476
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• 2011

Introduction of CNTs into a metal matrix has been considered to improve the mechanical properties of the metal matrix. However, the binding energy between metals and pristine CNTs wall is known to be so small that the interfacial slip between CNTs and the matrix occurs at a relatively low external stress. The interfacial strength between CNT and metal matrix is thus one of the key factors for successful development of the CNT/metal composites. Defective or functionalized CNT has been considered to enhance the interfacial strength of nanocomposites. In the present work, we design the various realistic hybrid structures of the single wall CNT/Cu complexes and characterize the interaction between single wall CNTs and Cu nano-particle and Cu13 cluster using first principle calculations. The characteristics of functionalized CNTs with various surface functional groups, such as -COOH, -OH, and -O interacting with Cu are investigated. We found that the binding energy can be enhanced by the surface functional group including oxygen since the oxygen atom can mediate and reinforce the interaction between carbon and Cu. These results strongly support the recent experimental work which suggested the oxygen on the interface playing an important role in the excellent mechanical properties of the CNT/Cu composite.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.201-205
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• 2003

Laccase, lignin- and manganese peroxidase are implicated in the lignin degradation. The nucleotide sequences of four copper-binding domains in fungal laccases, and heme-binding domains of lignin- and manganese peroxidases are well conserved, and therefore these short fragments can be used for the PCR for the gene amplification. We synthesized several PCR primers according to their sequences, and run PCR to amplifiy the lignin degrading genes of Trametes versicolor isolated in Korea. PCR products were cloned with pGEM-T vector in order to determine their nucleotide sequences. A laccase fragment (1.3 kb) showed 65-97％ homologies, lignin peroxidase fragment (185 bp) showed 80-95％ homologies, and manganese peroxidase fragment (443 bp) showed 61-83％ homologies when compared with other white-rot fungal enzymes.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.362-370
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• 1995

Human plasma low density lipoprotein(LDL) is the main carrier for cholesterol, and recent studies suggest the normal LDL can be readily oxidized by free radical and not interact with LDL receptor. Lipoprotein pariticles are consisted of lipid andprotein, and fatty acids of lipoproteins are prone to oxidation. LDL particles readily undergo oxidative modification by copper. From the results, oxidized LDL altered its biological properties. A marked increase in the electrophoretic mobility of LDl on agarose gel indicated that negative surface charge of the LDL particles was increased. Also, the results from the HPLC showed that oxidized LDL was degraded into several polypeptides nonenzymatically. Degradation tests which measured the amount of 5-IAF labelled oxidized LDL were carried out by monocyte and hepatocyte cell culture. Hepatocyte cell culture of modified LDL did not show consistent pattern. However, binding rate of modified LDL with HMDM(human monocyte derived macrophage) was enhanced with oxidation, but was retarded by addition of antioxidants(hyaluronic acid, vitamin A, vitamin E). Also comparisons of oxidized-LDL, acetyl-LDL and MDA-LDL showed significant differences in the chemical properteis and binding affinity to HMDM. Thus, modificaition of normal LDL altered its biological properties.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.299-304
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• 1995

Antioxidative effect of tea extracts from green tea(steamed, roasted), oolong tea and black tea was investigated. Antioxidative activities of the crude catechin fraction were the most effective in oolong tea which contained the highest level of (-)-epigallocatechin gallate(EGCg). The water-soluble fraction obtained from oolong tea exhibited binding with more ferrous than copper ions. It showed a synergistic effect when used with an antioxidant such as BHT(0.5mg) and $\alpha$-tocopherol(2mg). Especially, this synergistic effect was exhibited more with BHT than with $\alpha$-tocopherol. Also steamed green tea, roasted green tea and oolong tea showed remarkable free radical scavenging action. The SC50(the concentration of a water-soluble fraction which is required to scavenge 50% of 100$\mu$M 1, 1-diphenyl-2-picryl hydrazyl radicals) of steamed and roasted green tea, oolong tea and black tea extracts were 11.3$\mu\textrm{g}$/ml, 11.4$\mu\textrm{g}$/ml, 12.7 $\mu\textrm{g}$/ml and 14.9$\mu\textrm{g}$/ml, respectively. It is assumed that the antioxidative activity of tea extracts is due to inhibition of peroxidation free radical scavenging and binding action of ferrous ions by mainly tea polyphenol compounds.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.13 no.11
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• pp.5350-5355
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• 2012

Human tyrosinase (hTyr) catalyzes the first and rate limiting step in the biosynthesis of a skin color determinant, melanin. Although a number of cosmetic companies have tried to develop hTyr inhibitors for several decades, absence of 3D structure of hTyr make it impossible to design or screen inhibitors by structure-based approach. Therefore, we built a 3D structure by comparative modeling technique based on the crystal structure of tyrosinase from Bacillus megaterium to provide structural information and to search new hit compounds from database. Our model revealed that two copper atoms of active site located deep inside and were coordinated with six strictly conserved histidine residues coming from four-helix-bundle. Substrate binding site had narrow funnel like shape and its entrance was wide and exposed to solvent. In addition, hTyr-tyrosine and hTyr-kojic acid, a well-known inhibitor, complexes were modeled with the guide of solvent accessible surface generated by in-house software. Our model demonstrated that only phenol group or its analogs could fill the binding site near the nuclear copper center, because inside of binding site had narrow shape relatively. In conclusion, the results of this study may provide helpful information for designing and screening new anti-melanogenic agents.

• The Korean Journal of Ecology
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.7-13
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• 2005

In the present study, we investigated the tolerance of Commelina communis to growth in Cu-contaminated soil and water We examined the germination rate, root and shoot growth of seedlings, fresh biomass in soil and water, and ability to eliminate Cu. We found that C. communis eliminated 41% of Cu in soil containing 50 mg Cu/kg and removed over 50% of Cu from water containing 100 mg Cu/L Cu. In addition, the plants could accumulate 90 mg Cu/g when grown in soil containing 50 mg Cu/kg and 140 mg Cu/g when grown in soil containing 100 mg Cu/kg thus higher levels of Cu removal were observed in soils containing higher Cu concentrations. In water, the maximal accumulation rate was 4.9 mg Cu/g root and 1.2 mg Cu/g shoot in water containing 20 mg Cu/L, and 7 days after exposure, Cu absorption saturated. Further, the growth rate of C. communis was not affected by up to 100 mg Cu/kg in the soil. Therefore, the phytotoxic effect of Cu on plants increased as the concentration of Cu was raised, although to different extents depending on whether the Cu was in soil or water. Overall, Cu removal from soil by C. communis was most effective at 100 mg Cu/kg in soil and 10 mg Cu/L in water. Finally, we identified two peaks of Cu-binding ligands in C. communis. Which is a high molecular weight peak (HMWL) at 60 kDa (Fraction 17 to 25) and a Cu binding peptide peak at <1 kDa (Very low molecular weight ligand: VLMWL). Cu-binding peptide (Cu-BP) was observed to have an amino acid composition typical of phytochelations.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.558-567
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• 1989

The synthesis of methanol from carbon dioxide and hydrogen was studied for various compositions of Cu/ZnO catalyst system. Effect of the composition ratio of CuO and ZnO on the catalytic activity in the above reaction and the relationship between the activity and the characteristics of the catalysts were explained from the result of surface area measurements, SEM, XRD, and XPS. The major products of the reaction were methanol and carbon monoxide. The selectivity to methanol increased with increase of the copper oxide content in the catalyst up to CuO: ZnO = 30:70 weight ratio, and decreased rapidly when the content is above 70%. SEM and BET measurements, indicate that this point corresponds to the increasing point of the catalyst crystallite size and the decreasing point of the surface area. As to the Cu/Cu + Zn atomic ratio, the surface concentration of copper measured by XPS decreased remarkably when the copper oxide content in catalyst was higher than 50%. All the unreduced catalysts had almost same binding energy of Cu(2P3) level, but the binding energy for $Cu(2P^3)$ level of reduced catalysts was lowered than that of calcined catalysts. The surface copper species which was in the maximum amount when the CuO:ZnO composition in the catalyst was 30:70, existed as zero valent copper. This result agreed with the experimental result that the highest rate of methanol formation was observed when the CuO content in the catalyst was 30%. It was postulated that these reduced catalysts performed with a relatively strong basicity because the formation rate of acetone was higher than that of propylene in isopropanol decomposition as measured in a pulse type reactor.