• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.547-558
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• 1997

Background : Tumor necrosis factor(TNF) has been considered as an important candidate for cancer gene therapy based on its potent anti-tumor activity. However, since the efficiency of current techniques of gene transfer is not satisfactory, the majorities of current protocols is aiming the in vitro gene transfer to cancer cells and re-introducing genetically modified cancer cells to hoot. In previous study, it was shown that TNF-sensitive cancer cells transfected with TNF-$\alpha$ cDNA would become highly resistant to TNF. Understanding the mechanisms of TNF-resistance in TNF-$\alpha$ gene transfected cancer cells would be an important step for improving the efficacy of cancer gene therapy as well as for better understandings of tumor biology. This study was designed to evaluate the role of new protective protein synthesis in the acquired resistance to TNF of TNF-$\alpha$ gene transfected cancer cells. Method : We transfected TNF-$\alpha$ c-DNA to WEHI164, a murine fibrosarcoma cell line, using retroviral vector(pLT12SN(TNF)) and confirm the expression of TNF with PCR, ELISA, MIT assay. Then we determined the TNF resistance of TNF gene transfected cells(WEHI164-TNF) and the changes of TNF sensitivities after treatments with actinomycin D(transcription inhibitor) and cycloheximide ( translation inhibitor). Results : WEHI164 which was sensitive to TNF became resistant to TNF after being transfected with TNF-$\alpha$ gene and the resistance to TNF was partially reversed after treatment with actinomycin D, but not with cycloheximide. Conclusion : The acquired resistance to TNF after TNF-$\alpha$ gene transfection may be associated with synthesis of some protective proteins.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.249-255
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• 2012

In this study, fosmid cloning strategies were used to assess the microbial populations in water from the International Space Station (ISS) drinking water system (henceforth referred to as Prebiocide and Tank A water samples). The goals of this study were: to compare the sensitivity of the fosmid cloning strategy with that of traditional culture-based and 16S rRNA-based approaches and to detect the widest possible spectrum of microbial populations during the water purification process. Initially, microbes could not be cultivated, and conventional PCR failed to amplify 16S rDNA fragments from these low biomass samples. Therefore, randomly primed rolling-circle amplification was used to amplify any DNA that might be present in the samples, followed by size selection by using pulsed-field gel electrophoresis. The amplified high-molecular- weight DNA from both samples was cloned into fosmid vectors. Several hundred clones were randomly selected for sequencing, followed by Blastn/Blastx searches. Sequences encoding specific genes from Burkholderia, a species abundant in the soil and groundwater, were found in both samples. Bradyrhizobium and Mesorhizobium, which belong to rhizobia, a large community of nitrogen fixers often found in association with plant roots, were present in the Prebiocide samples. Ralstonia, which is prevalent in soils with a high heavy metal content, was detected in the Tank A samples. The detection of many unidentified sequences suggests the presence of potentially novel microbial fingerprints. The bacterial diversity detected in this pilot study using a fosmid vector approach was higher than that detected by conventional 16S rRNA gene sequencing.

• Archives of Pharmacal Research
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.722-729
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• 2005

With the aim to improve the specificity and to reduce the cytotoxicity of polyethylenimine (PEI), we have synthesized the conjugates of the branched PEI (25 kDa) with transferrin. The trans-ferrin-PEI (TP) conjugates with five compositions were synthesized using periodate oxidation method and confirmed by FT-IR spectroscopy and gel permeation chromatography. The free amine contents of TP conjugates, which were able to condense and deliver DNA, increased as the amount of PEI increased. TP/DNA polyplexes were characterized by measuring gel elec-trophoresis, ethidium bromide fluorescence quenching, particle size and zeta potential of complexes. Complete complexation of the polyplexes was observed above the N/P ratio of 5 in TP/DNA, and above 3 in PEI/DNA, respectively. The zeta potential of the complexes decreased as the amount of transferrin in TP conjugates increased. Transfection efficiency of TP conjugates was evaluated in HeLa cell and Jurkat cell systems. Among the five compositions of TP conjugates, TP-2 system mediated a higher $\beta$-galactosidase gene expression than PEI system in Jurkat cell which was known to express elevated numbers of transferrin receptors. From the results of the cell viability based on MTT assay, TP conjugates showed lower cytotoxicity com-pared with the PEI system. We expect that the TP conjugate can be used efficiently as a non-viral gene delivery vector.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.167-172
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• 2010

Streptomyces scabiei producing phytotoxin called thaxtomin, which cause scab disease on economically important crops such as potato. For molecular genetics study of S. scabiei an effective transformation method was established based on conjugal transfer from Escherichia coli ET12567 (pUZ8002) using a phiC31-derived integration vector, pSET152, containing oriT and attP fragments. The high frequency was obtained on MS medium containing 50 mM $MgCl_2$. In addition, the sequence and location of the chromosomal integration attB site of S. scabiei was identified for the first time in the strains producing thaxtomin by the southern blot analysis of exconjugants and the sequencing of plasmid containing DNA flanking the insertion sites from exconjugant chromosome. Similar to the case of Streptomyces species, a single phiC31 attB site of S. scabiei is present within an ORF encoding a pirin-homolog.

• International Journal of Industrial Entomology and Biomaterials
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.231-238
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• 2011

Attacin is an insect antibacterial protein that plays an important role in immune response to injury and infection. In this report, we have isolated and characterized of cDNA encoding for the attacin from the immunized larvae of swallowtail butterfly, $Papilio$ $xuthus$. A full length cDNA of $P.$ $xuthus$ attacin was obtained by employing annealing control primer (ACP)-based differential display PCR and 5' RACE. The complete $P.$ $xuthus$ attacin cDNA was comprised of 949 bp encoding a 250 amino acid precursor. It contains a putative 18 amino acid signal peptide sequence, a 42 amino acid propeptide sequence, and a 190 amino acid mature protein with a theoretical molecular mass of 19904.01 and a pI of 9.13. The putative mature protein of $P.$ $xuthus$ attacin showed 48-52% and 24-30% identity in amino acid sequences with that of lepidopteran and dipteran insects, respectively. Semiquantitive RT-PCR results revealed that the transcript of $P.$ $xuthus$ attacin gene was up-regulated at significant levels after injection with bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS). We sub-cloned cDNA fragment encoding mature $P.$ $xuthus$ attacin into the expression vector, highly expressed in $E.$ $coli$ BL21 cells, and its antibacterial activity was analyzed. Recombinant $P.$ $xuthus$ attacin evidenced considerably antibacterial activity against Gram-negative bacteria, $E.$ $coli$ ML 35 and $Klebsiella$ $pneumonia$.

• The Korean Journal of Zoology
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.164-172
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• 1996

KP elements derived from Korean populations (Seoul, Cheonan and Taegu) of Drosophila melunoguster were examined for their molecular structure. The entire 1.15 kb sequence of the three KP elements KC-137 (Cheonan), KS-95 (Seoul) and KT-99 (Taegu) have been obtained by PCR amplification using inverted repeat primers and DNA sequencing. The 1.15 kb fragments of KP elements were cloned into pCRmll vector plasmids, and subsequently sequenced. The sequence of the three KP elements in these populations suggested that there might have been derived from the complete P element by a 1753 bp internal deletion between positions 808 and 2560. Therefore these KP elements were confirmed to be identical to that isolated from M'10 strains widely distributed in most Eurasian populations of D. melanoguster. Sequence comparison with the 2.9 kb complete P element in pn25.1 revealed that KC-137 has only shown to be two base substitutions of A to G and G to A at positions 62 and 242, respectively. The retained sequence of the two KP elements KS-95 and KT-99 shows complete homology to the P factor in pn25.1. Based on this result, the two base substitutions in KC-137 might be due to Taq DNA pollunerase errors. Finally, it is suggested that the high copy numbers of KP elements provieds an explanation for the suppression of P-mediated hybrid dvssenesis in Korean population of D. melunogoster.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Plant Pathology Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.74.1-74
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• 2003

Differential display (DD) of mRNA is a technique in which mRNA species expressed by a cell population are reverse transcribed and then amplified by many separate polymerase chain reactions (PCR). Using DD-RT-PCR we obtained many genes that expressed differentially in healthy and PVX-infected Nicotiana benthamima, using total RNAs extracted from healthy and PVX-infected N. benthamiana plants. Three hundred and twenty-five DNA fragments isolated from DD-RT-PCR were cloned and sequenced for further characterization. Several host genes including SKPI-like protein, heat shock transcription factor and Avr9/Cf-9 rapidly elicited protein were selected to obtain full-length open reading frame and to characterize their potential involvement in virus disease development and/or host's defense against virus infection employing PVX-based expression vector. Transcrips from wild-type and clones containing each selected gene were inoculated onto N. benthamiana Levels of virus replication were confirmedby RT-PCR and RNA blot analysis, Expression profiles and potential role(s) of selected genes upon PVX infection will be discussed.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.164-169
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• 1995

An endogenous cryptic plasmid, pBL1, which has been used to construct plasmid vectors for coryneform bacteria producing amino acids, was eliminated from Brevibacterium lactofermentum. The pBL1 was partially digested with Sau3AI and the resulting DNA fragments were subcloned into a suicide vector pEM1 which contains a kanamycin-resistant (km$^{r}$) gene. KM$^{r}$ B. lactofermentum transconjugants were obtained by conjugal transfer of the pEM1 derivatives containing pBL1 DNA fragments from Escherichia coli into B. lactofermentum. A km$^{r}$ transconjugant was analyzed to contain a plasmid pEB14, which occurred in vivo by homologous recombination between pBL1 and the conjugal-transferred plasmid. The pEB14 including the pEM1-derived km$^{r}$ gene was found to be lost concomitantly with km$^{r}$ phenotype, resulting in the construction of a pBL1-free strain of B lactofermentum. Based on transformation efficiencies and plasmid stability, the resultant pBL1- free strain is more useful than wild strain as a host cell for genetic manipulation. It could be concluded that foreign plasmid DNAs are efficiently isolated and analyzed from the pBL1-free strain because of the absence of endogenous pBL1 plasmid.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.361-364
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• 2008

The complete nucleotide sequences of a Korean isolate of Potato virus X(PVX-Kr) has been determined. Full-length cDNA of PVX-Kr has been directly amplified by long template reverse transcription and polymerase chain reaction(RT-PCR) using virus specific 5'-end primer and 3'-end primer, and then constructed in a plasmid vector. Consecutive subclones of a full-length cDNA clone were constructed to identify whole genome sequence of the virus. Total nucleotide sequences of genome of PVX-Kr were 6,435 excluding one adenine at poly A tail, and genome organization was identical with that of typical PVX species. Comparison of whole genome sequence of PVX-Kr with those of European and South American isolates showed 95.4-96.8% and 77.4-77.9%, in nucleotide similarity, respectively. Sequenced PVX-Kr in this study and twelve isolates already reported could be divided into two subgroups in phylogeny based on their complete nucleotide sequences. Phylogenetic tree analysis demonstrated that PVX-Kr was clustered with European and Asian isolates(Taiwan, os, bs, Kr, S, X3, UK3, ROTH1, Tula) in the same subgroup and South American isolates(CP, CP2, CP4, HB) were clustered in the other subgroup.

• Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering:BBE
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.154-159
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• 2006

Interleukin-18 (IL-18), otherwise known as interferon-gamma-inducing factor (IGIF), is one of several well characterized and important cytokines that contribute to host defenses. The complementary DNA (cDNA) of mature human interleukin-18 gene (hIL-18) was fused with the signal peptide of the rice amylase 1A gene (Ramy1A) and introduced into the plant expression vector under the control of a duplicated CaMV 35S promoter. The recombinant plasmid was transformed into tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L. cv Havana) using the Agrobacterium-mediated transformation method. The integration of the hlL-18 gene into the genome of transgenic tobacco plants was confirmed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification and its expression was observed in the suspension cells that were derived from the transgenic plant callus by using Northern blot analysis. The hlL-18 protein was detected in the extracts of the transgenic callus and in the medium of the transgenic tobacco suspension culture by using immunoblot analysis. Based upon enzyme-linked immunosorbant assay (ELISA) results, the expression level of the hlL-18 protein approximated $166{\mu}g/L$ in the suspension culture medium. Bioassay results from the induction of $interferon-{\gamma}$ from a KG-1 cell line indicated that the hlL-18 secreted into the suspension culture medium was bioactive.